


The Fallen Ashes

by magicalcrapulent



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Blood Feud, Discrimination, Eventual Smut, Multi, Past Abuse, Royal Argents, Royal Hales, Violence, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-01-10 00:45:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 17
Words: 46,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1152788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicalcrapulent/pseuds/magicalcrapulent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Hales of the North and the Argents of the South are at war with each other since generations. After attempts of peace have failed the two countries engage in another bloody  battle. A battle with unimagined consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everybody. I know that I have still another project going, but this idea just wouldn't leave me alone. I still continue the other one, parallel to this one.  
> English is still not my first language so you got to look over the mistakes I make. Sorry.

If Derek had to be completely honest he couldn't say how it all began. But as far as he knew nobody else in the entire country would be able to explain to him what had triggered this feud so long ago. The only thing he knew for sure was that it was raging since generations.

Some people say it has been the Argent's fault, that they have been the first ones who drew blood, but the people in the south were probably saying the same things about the Hales. Fact was, though, that none of them had wanted to be the first one to let this ancient grudge drop. At least not until now.

The wind was biting into Derek's skin, its ice-cold fingers crawling underneath his clothes and stealing all his warmth away. But Derek ignored it, his body used to far colder temperatures than this. His eyes were narrowed and his brows drawn together in a scowl while he watched his men bustling around in the camp that lay to his feet, their bodies stiff from tension while they worked along.

It wasn't an unfamiliar sight that greeted him beneath him, and he feared that it wouldn't be the last time he would see it in his life. Far too often for his and anybody else' liking they have brought their troupes together to fight yet another bloody battle. He detested it, the blood, the pain, his own and the agony of others around him, the screams and the constant present of death that overshadowed anything else, an entity that seemed to swallow them any given second. It was sickening.

But even more than battle he hated the Argents. Not because of an irrational feud or a principal dislike. He hated them because it was them that had brought yet another war to their doorsteps. It was their fault that yet again numerous men had to give their lives in the name of a war that was utterly senseless and affected by inexplicable hatred. But most of all he hated Kate Argent, because she has had the possibility to end this hatred once and for all, and she had thrown it into the wind like a fist full of dirt.

Not long ago It had looked as if peace was finally in the reach of their grasp. Derek, son and second child of Queen Talia Hale, had been engaged to Kate Argent, daughter and second child to King Gerard Argent. This union had been supposed to be the headstone of a – hopefully – everlasting peace between their two countries. She had come over the Border Mountains into the north just before the winter set in, in preparation of their marriage. Over the long, harsh months they have began to build a union that was more than just name. Derek especially had tried to get along with her, even if he hadn't been thrilled of their marriage at first. But while he had talked to Kate and has been with her during the winter he has had the impression that she had wanted the same. Peace between their countries, an end to the bloodshed.

How wrong he was.

Not sooner than the high mountain trails have been accessible again in spring Kate had performed her true mission. It had been deep into the night when she had set fire to the castle. She herself had fled by horse while everyone else had tried to extinguish the flames that were swallowing the halls and tried to save as many people as possible. At first they have been worried for her, that she had been killed by the flames or that she lay somewhere beneath the debris, but one of the handmaidens has come up to them, her breath heavy by the smoke, and had told them how she had seen Kate setting the castle in flames.

Many people had died that day, but thankfully the fire hadn't spread on to the other houses in the city, but that had been the only comfort that day. Derek's older sister Laura, crown princess to the throne, had been severely injured, and her life was still balanced on a knife's edge. Many of the servants and maidens have been killed by the collapsing roof, and if they haven't been crushed by the debris they had died of the smoke in their lungs of the flames that had licked at their skins.

Many lives have gone to waste, and the cry for vengeance has been loud among the people. Quickly all men fit for action have been collected to support the soldiers of the army that went into battle, their training short and narrowed to the basics of fighting, though. Derek doubted that they would be of any real assistant when the battle started.

Derek raises his head, his eyes wandering over the tents of his men over the grassland towards the other side of what was soon to be a blood soaked battlefield. In the distance he could make out the outlines of the enemy's camp in the gap between the hills. Trees were outlining both of their camps, and the river Kanima was running to their left, its current wild and high, filled with the snow water from the Border Mountains. The river was the only thing that connected the two countries geographically with each other, an always present reminder of their differences and their insurmountable hatred.

With a last look Derek turned around and stomped back towards the tents, away from the small cliff that overlooked the field and the camp below. On his way towards his uncle's marquee, the strategic meeting place of their army, the soldiers stopped in whatever they were doing and gave him a short bow or a nod of their head before they continued, but he didn't look at them. Derek didn't really ignored them, but he had learned a long time ago that telling them to stop or to acknowledge them with an own nod of his head wouldn't be of any use.

When he had reached his destination he flipped the canvas cover aside and stepped inside. His uncle Peter Hale, his mother's younger brother and Commander-in-Chief of their army, was bend over a map of the area, his forehead winkled while he was deep in thoughts. His hands were resting on the table, his fingers tapping in a rhythm only he knew. At first he didn't notice that Derek was present until he stepped up beside him and shared a look at the map.

“What do you think?” Peter asked, his eyes still trained on the map, as if he was trying to see something that wasn't there, a pattern or a sign that he had overlooked or that was hidden from his view. Derek scanned the map vividly, taking his time with his answer.

“I think they haven't positioned themselves behind the ridges for nothing,” he eventually said. “They're planning something.”

Peter nodded absent-mindedly, still focused on the piece of paper in front of him. “That's what I've thought, too. But the pressing question is, though, _what_ are they planning?”

Before Derek could try to give an answer to that question the entry of the tent was opening again. A tall, dark skinned man entered, followed by a younger one with a crooked jaw. Vernon Milton Boys IV – though he demanded that everyone simply called him 'Boyd' - was one of the Hale's most trusted commanders. Since four generation his family had served under their command, and every single one of them had not only brought great honor to their family, but has defended his homeland successfully dozens of times, sometimes paying for it with their own lives. The young man behind him was Scott Hale, Peter's adopted son. When he was merely a toddler Peter had married his mother, Melissa McCall, and he had been taken into the family easily. Derek loved him like his own brother, and he remembered fondly how he had looked after him when they were younger. But now that he saw his brother in everything but blood with a sword at his waist and an expression on his face that told him that he was ready for battle, ready to take an other man's life, his heart filled with sadness, sorrow and grief. Another reason to hate the Argents. They took away his brother's innocence. Derek had wished that Scott would never have to need his sword.

“Where is our little beauty queen?” Peter asked mischievously when they entered.

Boyd and Scott smiled before the older man answered. “The last time I saw him he was tending to the love of his life,” Boyd said, and even Derek had to smile. It was well-known that Commander Jackson Whittemore was more worried of the life of his white mare than of his own. Derek didn't want to think about how often he had brought himself into danger just to save that damn horse. He bore the scars with pride, and strangely enough women were crowding him more and more with every new one he got, as if his good looks haven't been reason enough. Sometimes Derek wondered if all those women were blind or if they purposefully ignored Jackson's gigantic ego and the fury of his wife, Lydia Whittemore.

Speaking of the devil Jackson entered the tent seconds after, his nose held high like always, and the sight made Derek want to punch him in the face. But he was a damn good commander and soldier, so he restrained himself. “Let's get this things over with. I hate this mollycoddled climate,” Jackson said and crossed his arms in front of his chest, looking at everyone annoyed. Boyd just shook his head while Peter smiled a little.

“I want to go home, too, belief me,” Peter said and turned back towards the map in the middle of their little circle. “Just like I said to Derek, the Argents are planning something. I don't know what they will use those ridges for, but they are definitely part of this plan.”

“Maybe they try to hide their true numbers,” Scott threw in, his eyes eagerly meeting Derek's and Peter's, as if he was searching for their approval of what he had suggested. In moments like these Derek was all too aware of how young Scott actually was, and how little experience he had in battle. But he was now a member of the house Hale, and as such he had to take his part in this never ending game of chess their countries played.

“Maybe,” Boyd said, lost in his own thoughts. “Maybe they will bring this additional forces out when it get's tight, or to digest us little by little while they are changing out their own soldiers.”

“Either way it won't be good for us,” Jackson said. “Whatever they're planning, we have to disintegrate their forces and smash them when they lose formation and they are at their weakest.”

“What do you suggest?” Peter asked, his arms now folded in front of his chest as well, looking a Jackson.

“I say we take our cavalry and split them into two groups. We place them here and here,” Jackson said and pointed at the map. “On either side of their troupes, hidden by the forest. When whatever plan they are concocting gets into action we ride out, circle them and attack them from all sides at once. They won't be able to stand our strength, no matter how many men they have. They will lose formation, and we will have an easy win,” Jackson explained, looking quite smug while he looked into everyone's face.

Peter was assessing it for a moment, probably running it through his head more than once, thinking about every little possibility and any given danger. After a while he nodded his head. “All right. Jackson, you will lead the first group, flanking them from the right. Boyd, you will lead the second group to their left flank. When we give the signal you two come out and mow down every head that gets in your way, no matter if the Argents are activating their plan or not. The fact that we don't know their real plan and we are only making assumptions here doesn't sit well with me, and if we get into trouble I don't want to take any risks. Understood?”

Boyd and Jackson both nodded their head, the seriousness of the situation clear in their eyes. When Peter released them they stepped out of the tent, preparing their men and horses and already getting into position as stealthily as they could so the Argent's wouldn't know of their own little surprise.

“Scott, you and Derek stay together tomorrow. We will be in the fire pit of this battle, and I belief that it will get ugly. Stay. Together,” Peter told Scott, looking him straight in the eyes to make sure his message came across. Scott swallowed hard and cast a glance at Derek before he nodded. In his look lay so much fear, and the realization that war wasn't as glorious and heroic as he had always imagined it while he had swung his little wooden sword around the halls of their home, only scaring the servants. The look tugged at Derek's heart again.

Derek, too, nodded when his uncle looked at him, and together with Scott he left the tent as well. Before Scott could wander off, though, he grabbed him by the arm and turned him around before he rested his hands on his shoulders. “Tomorrow you stick to me, and I will make sure that you're going to be all right. I will protect you,” Derek told him. He had always protected Scott, ever since he first entered his life, and he sure as hell wouldn't stop now that Scott was growing up to become a man himself.

A little bit of the uncertainty and fear from before vanished from Scott's face, and although it wasn't the same carefree and happy expression Derek was so used to it was still an improvement. With a rare smile of his he dismissed his younger counterpart with a clap on the shoulders. “Now go and prepare yourself.”

Derek himself though didn't return to his own tent immediately. He went back through the rows of other tents towards the ridge where he had overlooked the field, his eyes scanning the rows of his enemy once again. Something in the back of his mind was telling him that he wasn't seeing the full picture, that he was overlooking something.

Yes, maybe the Argent's were planning to hide and hold back some of their troupes in case they got into a predicament, or that they wanted to keep up a steady flood of soldiers coming to wear them out, but his guts were telling him that it couldn't be that easy, that something bigger was going on.

His eyes caught a movement on one of the hills in the distance, and when he moved his eyes to it he could make out a single silhouette. He observed it, and somehow he got the feeling that this person in the distance was observing him as well.

A shudder ran down his spine, and he got the cold and dreading feeling in the pit of his stomach that something terrible was about to happen tomorrow.


	2. The Battle

Derek's stallion was agitated. The mighty black beast, Darach, was prancing back and forth, throwing it's head around and neighing loudly into the cold air. He could feel the muscles flexing underneath him, overridden with power. It was always the like this before a fight, before horse and rider went into battle together.

Derek bent forward, clapping the stallions neck and murmuring soft words to sooth not only the mount but also his own nerves. 

Boyd and Jackson were already in position. During the night, when the whole world has turned dark, they had moved into the forests flanking the battlefield, all ready to storm out and mow down their enemies when the signal was given. Now he only hoped that everything was going according to plan and that they would get out of this fight victorious.

Derek looked up when he noticed a movement to his right. Scott was sitting confidently on his own brown mare. But from his tight grip on his reigns and the uneasy look in his eyes Derek could tell that he was as anxious and afraid as Derek has been before his first battle, has been ever since.

Before he could say something to sooth his brother in everything but blood, though, Peter was riding up to his left. They both shared a look before Peter nodded.

With their color sergeant behind them the three were spurring on their horses, crossing the field in front of them until they reached the middle.

The Argent's men were lined up o the other side. Their armors were building a gray mass only divided by gaps that separated the individual divisions, their commanders sitting on horses in front of them. Another color sergeant was riding towards them, three lone figures following him. In the middle between the two armies Derek and the others halted. waiting patiently

Gerard Argent was riding in the middle. Normally a man his age would stop participating actively in such a fight, he instead was clad in a shining armor, though, his posture string and self-confident, if not arrogant. He was a renown to be a military genius, and since he has been made king through more or less legitimate and righteous circumstances it has become a hard feat for the North to gain the upper hand in their rivalry.

To Gerard's right sat Chris, his firstborn and heir. In sense of strategic thinking and warfare he didn't standbehind his father, though Chris was known to be more collected and reasonable. When he had the chance the would rather form a truce rather than risk the life of his man, whereas Gerard's goal was to smash the Hales, no matter what, even if it meant loosing half of his troops. But that didn't mean that Chris had to be taken lightly. He was a veteran on the battlefield who never lost a fight.

To Gerard's other side rode the reason for this new slaughter. Kate came after her father. A cunningly sharp mind paired with ruthless morals. The only problem was that Derek have recognized these features far too late. Grinning she sat on her white mare, her eyes mocking her opponent, as if she knew something nobody else knew, and it made Derek's stomach churn in unease.

“How's the family, Derek?” she asked, her voice so sickly sweet that Derek wanted to throw up.

“Kate!” Chris rebuked her sternly, obviously not happy about her mockery. She stayed silent, but her grin only grew wider when she saw Scott and Derek glaring at her angrily.

Derek had to clench his teeth together to not give her a sharp reply. The last thing he wanted to do was to play into her hand. Not to forget that it wasn't his turn to speak.

“Gerard Argent,” Peter addressed his opponent, “we demand that you hand and over your daughter Kate Argent so that we are able to give her the penalty she deserves for her crimes she has recently committed in and towards our kingdom and our people.” His voice sounded calm and even, but Derek noticed the small quiver in his voice, barely noticeable, that revealed his anger and outrage over her actions.

As a response Kate and Gerard began to laugh. There was something so cruel and arrogant in it that it made Derek's blood boil in in anger. They dare laughed at the suffrage of his people and family!

“Do you really expect me to hand over my own daughter when she did nothing else but make me proud?” Gerard answered the demand, a smirk still clear on his lips.

“It was my pleasure,” Kate said, her grin mocking and entirely pleased with herself. Chris didn't say anything at all, his face a stoic mask that didn't let the lightest hint of an emotion show.

“In that case there is nothing left for us to say,” Peter pressed out, his brows furrowed in fierce hatred. With a quick flick of his hands he turned his horse around, galloping back to his army, Scott hot on his heels.

Derek gave Kate a last glare before he turned as well and joined his uncle.

They positioned themselves in the front row, facing their soldiers. When Peter was sure he got the attention of his men he began to speak.

“They didn't give up,” he declared, a small smirk stealing itself onto his face, his sharp eyes roaming over the rows and assessing his men. The men laughed, and even Derek had to hide his amusement, as short as it last.

“Over and over again the Argents are mocking, defiling ans slaughtering,” Peter continued on with a grave voice, his expression now grave and serious. “Crime after crime they committed against us, but we are northerners! We won't let them get away with it so easily! And today is the day we will make them pay for what they did!”

Cheers broke out from their men, and Derek, Peter and Scott turned around, ready to lead their men into battle.

“Nice speech,” Derek commented, not letting the southerners out of his sight. 

“Thanks. Worked on it all night,” Peter said easily, and Derek snorted in amusement. 

“You all right?” he then turned towards Scott who was fidgeting on his other side. 

“Fine,” he answered, but his voice was high and forced, deeming his words a lie. 

“Don't forget what I told you yesterday. Stay close to me. I won't let anything happen to you,” Derek reminded him, hoping that his words were enough to sooth his companions nerves. And he hoped that he would be able to stand true to his words.

 

xXx

 

 

No sunbeam was able to break through the thick layer of clouds covering the sky. Even before the two armies were clashing against each other The weather had been dizzy and dim. A few minutes after the fight had started the sky had decided to open it's gate, releasing the already anticipated rain.

Like every beginning of a battle it had been a slaughter. Two fronts colliding in an indistinguishable heap of metal and flesh. The earth has been soaked with blood within moments, the grass upturned by the feet of thousands of men, their only intent to drive their steel into the body of his enemy. 

The sound of metal against metal was filling the air, paired with pained screams and battle cries, the sound of rain falling on armor creating an unworldly symphony. All over the field men were aspirating their last breath, their eyes growing cold and lifeless while the little warmth of their bodies was sipping into the ground.

Derek was wet and cold, the linen underneath his armor growing heavy from the rain, the fingers in his gloves numb. But nonetheless he was gripping his sword tight in his hands while he rode through the enemy's rows, felling every opponent that dared to walk into his path. More often than not men had tried to bring him to the ground, pointing their spears at his horse to kill it and (hopefully) bury him underneath it, but his charger wasn't faced by it. Over and over again it evaded their weapons, dancing on the battlefield and stomping on everyone who didn't move fast enough.

A few meters away Scott was fighting his own battle. For a while now he had to fight on the ground, his horse killed by a lance thrown it's way. He was slashing his sword skillfully, though every soldier who had a little bit of experience could see that this was his first real battle. Nonetheless he was fighting bravely, and although Derek knew that his little brother was scared, he was proud of him that he overcame it.

They've fought for a while now, slowly edged towards the Kanima, and from his vantage-point Derek could oversee the battlefield. None of the armies was at a distinctive advantage, none of them looking as if it was to win this fight.

With sharp eyes Derek scanned the heads of the fighters, looking for his uncle. They've been parted shortly after it began, but now he was able to spot him a hundred yards away. Peter, too, seemed to have looked for him, for he gave his nephew a sharp nod before he turned to his side, talking to someone.

Only seconds later Derek heard the sound of a horn roaring over the field, others joining the first one until the air was vibrating with it. The thundering sounds of hundreds of horses approaching reached his ears, and with a wicked grin Derek brought his sword down onto another poor opponent. He knew that the Argent's haven't revealed their plan yet, but if this battle got on as it did both parties would be tired out in a few hours.

With a satisfied smirk Derek watched how Boyd was dashing out of the underwood of the forest to their right, he and his cavalry raising their swords high over their heads just to slash them down again onto some poor man's neck. Like a wave they were washing over the enemy's lines. Jackson emerged on the other flank just a few seconds later, the screams of his opponents filling the air.

Derek could see how the southerners were getting uncertain, with a good potion of their men getting slaughtered in the back, not only killing their men but also cutting off their way of retreat. They were sitting in a trap.

Like predicted the Argent's lost formation very soon, many of them scattered on the battlefield while their support was blocked, and with an elated feeling Derek watched how they were winning.

A movement in the corner of his eyes caught his attention. With a whir something flew past him, only thanks to Darach who took a step to the side he had been able to get out of the way of the arrow. He whipped his head around and watched how shaft was buried in the eye of one of his soldiers before his dead body hit the ground.

His breath was caught in his throat when he turned his head again, his eyes frantically scanning the ridges behind the southern army. Hundreds of archers stood on the hills, their bows firing a steady flood of arrows down onto the battle field, right into the rows of the still galloping cavalry. The men were dying like flies, taking down some of their comrades while their horses were stumbling and colliding with others. 

Silently Derek watched the scene unfold in front of him, cold dread filling his body and leaving him numb to the world. With horror he realized that they have played into the enemy's hand. They have waited for them to get their hidden troops out in the open, so they could launch their own attack. They have let him and the others belief that they were having a plan – which they did – and were counting on them doing a counter strike. Gerard had juggled with the lives of his men to get Peter to show his own hidden plan. He had pushed his luck and won.

Gritting his teeth together in frustration and self-hatred Derek turned his head towards his uncle, opening his mouth to shout to him, tell him that they had to retreat if they didn't want to find their bitter end on this field. But he only got out a grunt when an arrow hit his shoulder, the tip sliding through the little gab at his armpit and piercing into his chest.

The air left his lungs when he hit the ground, the impact of the arrow throwing him out of his saddle. He was gaping like a fish while he tried to get a deep breath, but as he drew it in a sharp pain shot through his chest. Groaning he raised a hand and gripped the shaft of the arrow, but the slightest touch made him flinch away from the hurt.

With effort he was able to roll over partially, his vision a bit fuzzy from the fall. His ears were ringing, and for a moment he had the impression that the whole world around him was moving far more slowly than it should.

Darach was prancing into his field of vision, his mighty hoof coated with mud and blood. He could see dark leather boots and greaves, a helmet clad loose head, the dead eyes looking back at him. He could see the spume of the Kanima down an embankment, it's water running wild from all the melt water and heavy rain. Derek's world was spinning. Mud was getting into his eyes, and a buzzing filled out his hearing. He knew he had to stand up. He knew that he would die if he didn't stand up and defend himself.

With another groan Derek began to haul himself back up, every movement of his arms and upper body accompanied by a piercing pain in his chest. It felt like hours until he felt himself standing upright again. Every panting breath he drew in was agony to his body. His knees felt weak and unsure on the muddy ground. 

Disoriented he looked around, trying to focus. Where was his sword? Where was Darach? Where was Peter? And what about Scott? 

Sluggishly Derek looked around, only turning his head, for everything else was far to exhausting. He spotted Scott not far away, half a dozen men standing between them. His eye were filled with horror and desperation as he fought them off, his movements hurried and hasty. Derek wanted to reprimand him, tried to tell him that he needed to be cautious and that he needed to raise his guard.

Their eyes met for only a fraction of a second, and he saw Scott's eyes widen in terror when another impact hit Derek. Again it pushed the air out of his lungs. Confused he looked down and saw another arrow embedded in his abdomen, right through the plate of his armor. 

He lifted his gaze from the shaft and looked back to Scott who was now surrounded by southerners. He tried to fight them off, but there were too many. For a last time their eyes met before someone smashed the pommel of his sword against Scott's head and he fell over like a puppet without strings.

Derek wanted to get to him, wanted to go and protect his little brother, but when he tried to take a step the ground slipped away while his knees gave out simultaneously.

He felt himself falling and rolling. He felt how the shafts of the arrows in his body broke while he was crashing down the embankment towards the river. Branches, roots, and bushed were scraping and bruising his unprotected skin, stones denting his armor. It was impossible to breathe, and impossible to move. The only thing he could do was keep falling.

Wet, icy coldness engulfed him from one moment to the other, biting into his skin, and even if he hadn't been under water he wouldn't have been able to breathe. Air was something he came to treasure above everything else in that moment.

The cold was numbing the pain, and he began to struggle to the water surface. He gasped when he broke the surface, but nearly gagged when he was drawn under water again. His world was spinning again, he never knew where was up and where was down. His lungs burned from the lack of oxygen, just like his muscles, but when he felt something solid underneath his feet he pushed himself up and broke though the surface once again.

He couldn't revel in his small victory, though, for another sharp pain was filling his senses. His head felt as if it was going to explode, the pain blinding his vision. He tried to fight the incoming darkness while he was pulled under by the stream again, but he had no chance.

There was nothing left for him to do than to surrender to the unconsciousness.


	3. Out in the woods

Jennifer took in the fresh morning air. She had been barricaded in her house for far too long already. The winter had been short, but that was nothing out of order here in the South. Jennifer had to admit that this land had it's perks.

Releasing her breath she stepped out of her door, gathering her basket in the crook of her arm. As much as the climate was far more gentle and she liked the benefits from it she still missed her old home.

It's been four years since she had to leave the North, but still Jennifer just couldn't make this her knew home. The village she lived in shunned her, banning her towards the outskirt and the border of the forest surrounding the settlement. She had a small house, nothing special, just a big hut, a few animals, just chicken really, and a garden in which she grew vegetables and the herbs she needed for her work as a druid.

Back behind the Border Mountains a druid was nothing special. They lived in every village, performing rituals to the spirits of nature, but mostly they functioned as healers. But down here druids were treated like abominations. They were feared as witches and wizards. They were said to cast bad magic, cursing people and animals with their wicked herbs and spells and bringing plagues onto the land and people. Jennifer has been able to get the village to tolerate her at least, but whenever she entered the market she could feel their eyes on her, their stares and glares burying themselves into the back of her head. It was already bad enough that she came from the North, but she was a druid as well, and that made the people hater her even more. 

For a while she had tried to make them understand that she never wanted to harm anybody, and although several men and women came to her once in a while for a conception-tea or something against the loss of hair, they mostly evaded her presence.

But Jennifer didn't care. She continued on to practice her avocation, though the distance between her and the Nemeton was getting to her. She missed this warm and welcoming feeling she always got whenever she had touched the bark of that mighty tree. She could still remember her initiation ceremony. She had felt another presence in that oak, a power that had surged through the wood. Ever since she had been connected to it she had never really felt alone.

But here she was completely cut off and isolated, and she hated it.

Slowly Jennifer walked through the woods, feeling the little beams of sunlight breaking through the blossoming trees dancing on her face. She took another deep breath, reveling in the moist and clean smell that came after the rain. She gathered her skirts while she walked through the damp underwood. Although the winter had been short Jennifer still had to stock up her reserves of herbs she used during the cold and infertile season.

Once in a while she crouched down, gently picking up flowers, roots and leaves and put them in her basket. She was still fascinated of the vegetation in the South. Sometimes she found a plant which purpose was totally unknown to her, and she loved to experiment with them to unravel their secrets. But in return this land was also lacking some herbs she was used to.

Sometimes she was short on something she needed, but sometimes she had discovered an equivalent plant from the South. But Jennifer had to live with what she got. There was no way she would be able to return to her real home. Not without getting killed.

It's been four years since she had to flee, since her best friend had tried to kill her. 

She didn't like to remember it, the fear of what had happened – what _could_ have happened! – still sat deep in her bones.

She and Kali had been friends since they were little. Jennifer's mother had been a midwife, sustaining them after her father, a lumberman, died during an accident. Kali's father was a widely known hunter and tracker. He looked after her and her mother after the accident, staying true to the promise he gave his friend before he died.

As different as they were, she and Kali had been inseparable. Where Jennifer was smart and gentle Kali was cunning and ferocious. Where Jennifer dedicated her life to serve the Nemeton and heal other people Kali was following her father's footsteps, quickly rising to be the most requested hunter and tracker of the region. Jennifer wore dresses and skirts, Kali shirts and pants. They were balancing each other out.

But as strong as their friendship was, it only took one man to tear them apart.

Ennis was a lumberman, big like a bear and dumb like the trees he was chopping down. Jennifer didn't give him a second glance, but he immediately caught Kali's attention.

The only problem was that Ennis was more interested in other women. Over and over again they observed him how he was talking and flirting with numerous girls, in and out of their village, watched him how he took them home with him. With every single woman Kali's temper rose, and she nearly desperately tried to gain Ennis' attention, cursing every girl he was looking at.

It happened on the summer solstice. Jennifer had watched the couples dancing around the fire during the feast, wishing that she had someone to dance with her, too, when he had approached her. She had often witnessed Ennis talking to girls, how he had smiled at them 'charmingly', how he brushed his elbow against theirs and how his fingers had trailed down their arms, how he was moving further and further into their personal space.

She had never felt so uncomfortable in her entire life. Normally Kali would have been with her, fending off everyone who dared to get too close to her, but at that moment she had been busy fighting her way through the crowd to get them another ale. 

Jennifer had tried to tell Ennis off, but every rejection only seemed to encourage him more. She was immensely grateful when she had spotted her friend in the distance. She didn't even feet guilty when she rudely excused herself and stormed over to Kali.

Back then Jennifer hadn't noticed the cold and betrayed look on Kali's face, but now in retrospect she wondered how she could have been so blind to miss it.

In the following days she did notice, though, how her friend became somewhat distant, how she barely spoke with her and how quick she seemed to have something better to do whenever they met. She didn't make any of it, suspecting that Kali just had a lot of job requests to fulfill.

One night Jennifer had lain in her bed, peacefully asleep, when she was ripped out of her slumber. Back then she hadn't known what had woken her, but today she suspected that the power of the Nemeton had somehow sensed that she was in danger and warned her. Anyway, she woke up to Kali sneaking into her room, barely making any sounds, a blade firmly lying in her hand. It was a borderline miracle that Jennifer had been able to escape that night, dodging and evading the dagger before she was able to smash one of her potted plants on Kali's head. She had used the little opening she got to run to the door, hastily pulling her boots on before she sprinted out into the forest.

That night she had cursed her decision to get herself a small cottage in the woods to have a closer relationship to the Nemeton. If she had lived in the village she could have simply cried for help, but in the forest there was no one to hear her screaming.

Jennifer didn't know how long she was running in the gentle air of the night, with nothing on her body but her nightgown and the boots of her feet. Without them her feet would have been bloody and torn long before dawn. Kali would have caught up to her in no second. It felt like years that she was running through the underwood, completely lost in the dark without a point of orientation. She just wanted to get away.

And even when the sun was finally rising and the next village came into sight Jennifer didn't stop in her tracks. With no money and only clad in a dirty and torn gown the people had looked at her like she has gone mad. Even the soldiers stations at the settlement didn't take her seriously, laughing at her story that the famous huntress Kali was after her blood.

She hadn't known what to do in that moment. No one had believed her, no one had been willing to help her. Nobody had been _able_ to help her. There was no way she was going to escape Kali. 

But Jennifer was a fighter, always has been. And although it may not have been particularly worth mentioning beside someone like Kali, Jennifer had a whole lot of strength of her own, it just wasn't as visible as hers. And now was her time to prove it.

At first Jennifer had hesitated, but eventually she had thrown all her morals and manners aside and stole a few clothes drying on a line in a garden, and a few provisions from the market. She had asked a farmer if he could take her wit him for a few miles, and like that she had made it to another village.

For weeks Jennifer had been on the run, never staying long in one place, or Kali would have caught up to her. At one point, though, it has been a close call. Jennifer had been at an inn for two days. She had earned a little bit of money though her healing and medicines, and for once since a long time she had had enough to sleep in a real bed for once.

She had spotted Kali on the market place, clad completely in her hunting gear. She was on the hunt, and Jennifer was her pray. Jennifer still hadn't slept in a real bed that night.

After that Kali had always been hot on her heals, more than once nearly catching up to her. More and more Jennifer went out of possibilities to hide. And one day she had made the decision to leave the North and over the Border Mountains, hoping that she would finally be able to be left in peace.

But she had thought wrong.

The knife that had hit her had come out of thin air. One moment Jennifer had walked down a forest track, and the next she was down on the ground, clutching at the wound on her side where a blade was stuck in her flesh.

She remembered how Kali had stood over her, another knife tight in her hand, raising it already over her head. Jennifer could still feel the pain and fear that had wrecked her body back then, the mixed sensation still haunting her nightmare.

But Kali had hesitated. 

It had felt like years before she had moved again. With a click of her tongue she had lowered her arm, and Jennifer had been able to breathed again.

“You will stay away,” Kali had said, pointing the blade at Jennifer's face. “You will never come back. NEVER! Do you understand that?!” Hastily Jennifer had nodded, and without another word Kali had turned around and went away.

For minutes Jennifer had lain on the path, just waiting for Kali to turn back and finish what she had started.

But she never did.

And when Jennifer realized that she had cried form relief and sadness. She had saved her life, but had lost her family and home, everything and everyone she ever knew.

After she was done and had calmed down again Jennifer had ripped the seam of her cloak in stripes to use it to bandage the wound on her side after she had coated it with leaves she found at the side of the road that slowed the bleeding. 

Remembering what has happened Jennifer raised a hand to her side. She still had the scar that reminded her of her previous life. On especially cold days the old wound began to ache, and the sting triggered a totally different kind pain inside her. She wondered what cover-story Kali had told her mother and the whole village, what has happened to her, why she was gone, why she has disappeared all of a sudden.

Shaking her head Jennifer tried to get rid of the her dark thoughts. Except the people shunning her her life wasn't half bad here in the South. She had her own house, some animals, a garden, and no one was trying to kill her. At least not until now. 

Carefully Jennifer gathered more leaves and mosses, finding peace and calm in the simple labor. This work was familiar to her, and she enjoyed to be out in the open again after the winter and the rainstorm the other day.

She could hear the Kanima in the distance, the floods stronger and more violent than normally from the rain and the melt water from the mountains. Carefully she approached the river, taking care of her steps to not slip on the ground and fall into the water.

She looked down the shore, trying to spot a herb that didn't drown in the floods. She narrowed her eyes, though, when she saw something stranger lying on the gravel.

Her heart skipped a beat when she realized that it was the body of a man. She rushed over to him, setting down her basked beside his head when she fell to her knees and tried to turn him around. With a strangled groan she hauled him around, the man not only heavy with muscles but also from the metal armor he wore.

Immediately she spotted the arrows embedded in his body, one in his shoulder and one in his abdomen. His face was covered I blood that was flowing out of a laceration in his hairline. She quickly checked his pulse and was amazed that the man was still alive. He must have been in the water for hours and lost a lot of blood. He was sickly pale and his breathing was shallow. 

Gently Jennifer began to ease the straps of his armor open, prying off the plates to take a better look of his wounds. She flinched for a second when she removed his breastplate. His skin was littered in bruises and cuts, and sometimes a scar was interrupting the skin. Biting her lips Jennifer looked at the broken arrows, then at the frown on the man's face. He had to be in great pain, and if she didn't help him he would die.

Coming to a decision she stripped the man off his remaining armor and hauled him onto her shoulders. Her knees nearly gave out underneath her when she stood up, but she clenched her teeth together and began to walk back to her house. 

She was panting and sweating when she got through her door, and with quick steps she strode across the room and let the man fall onto her bed, a pained groan leaving his lips at the impact. Falling down on a nearby chair Jennifer caught her breath, her muscles quivering and aching from the exhaustion. After a minute she got back to her wobbly feet, going though a cabinet beside her stove. She opened the first drawer and gathered bandages and the tools she would need out of it. 

Taking a deep breath she walked back to the bed and took a look at the man in front of her before she reached down and began to cut his soaked shirt open. Quickly she fell back into a routine, her hands almost working on their own, her body remembering the well trained movements. Carefully she cut the heads of the arrows free and removed them, stitching the flesh back together and applied a poultice of herbs before she bandaged them. After the arrows have been removed she took a look at his head. Gently she expected his ears to make sure his skull wasn't broken, but she couldn't be sure if he had a concussion or not until he woke up. Again she cleaned it, applied the poultice and bandaged the wound. 

Heaving a deep breath she straightened back up, examining her handiwork. The stranger was still sickly pale and his whole body now also began shaking. Quickly she began to strip him off his wet clothes and pulled the blanket over his body. But in the motion she haltered, her eyes noticing something on the man's body she hadn't noticed before. 

A symbol has been engraved into the flesh on his uninjured shoulder, the ink dark underneath his skin. She took a closer look, her forehead furrowing while she tried to remember. She knew that sign. It looked familiar to her, the three swirled ends of it awakening something in her memories. How was this sign called again? 

A triskelion.

And now she knew where she had seen that sign before. It was the sign of the royal family. The royal family of the North.

A Hale.

Jennifer swallowed hard when she raised her head and looked into the man's face. She had a Hale in front of her, a member of the royal family. Of course Jennifer knew of the battle that had coursed up the river. Some men in the village have been called to take action in that fight, and now that she knew who this stranger was she also came to recognized his armor. No one in the South wore something like that. The quality of the metal was far too high for it, and the way it was crafted, totally untypical for the South. 

Her heart hammered in her chest while she let herself fall down on the edge of the mattress. If someone found out he was here both of them would be sentenced to death. She for helping him, and he for being a prince of the North. 

No one was ever allowed to find out. 

Not many people came to her small hut, but Jennifer had to keep them out now completely. If one of the villagers saw him with her they would get suspicious. And she had to hide the prince until he was out of danger and healed enough to make it out of the country alone and well. 

Making up her mind she grabbed the blanket again and pulled it completely over the prince's body, tucking him in to keep him from cooling out too much.

His life now lay in her hands.


	4. Making a vow

Scott's head hurt. If he could he would raise a hand to feel the back of it to find out if he had just a giant bum or a bleeding wound, but his hands were bound in front of him. The rough rope cut uncomfortably into his wrists, but not enough to break the skin. At least not yet, but his hands felt a little numb nonetheless.

He wasn't the only one bound. On either side of him walked his father and Boyd, looking even more miserable than he did himself. Boyd's clothes were baked with mud and he spotted cuts everywhere on his body. Jackson was walking behind Peter, quietly complaining about the whole situation. More soldiers who survived the battle were lined up behind them.

A caravan of prisoners, chased towards the capital. Their bonds were bound to a carriage that rode a steady pace in front of them to make sure they kept moving the one place none of them wanted to be at the moment.

After the archers had shown up during the battle the northern troops haven't last long. Soon Peter has called out their capitulation, and everyone who has still been alive has been taken captured.

Scott couldn't remember it, though. The hit to his head has knocked him out shortly after the arrows begun to rain down on them.

But the picture he saw before he passed out was forever burned into his memory.

He could still see Derek in front of him. It felt as if he was close enough to touch him, but at the same time a million miles away. He still saw how the first arrow has thrown him off his horse, how Scott has first thought that he was dead. He had never been so relieved when he had seen Derek moving again. Scott has tried to get to him, he has tried to fight off the southerners who had crowded him. But it hasn't been any use. He couldn't stop the second arrow hitting his brother before one of the soldiers has smashed the pommel of his sword against his skull.

If he had been stronger, if he had been able to fend the men off he could have got to Derek, could have defended him, help him, _save_ him.

But Scott was weak. He couldn't even defeat a few mere soldiers, how could he have thought he could help _Derek_? It would have been better if Scott hasn't even been there. If someone else would have been there Derek would still be alive.

“Where's Derek?” Boyd whispered in his ear, his brows furrowed and eyes scanning the rows behind them, searching for his superior and friend. Scott winced at the name and continued to stare onto his bound hands. If Boyd looked him in the eyes he would see how much he has failed Derek, how he had failed his brother.

“No...” Boyd exhaled when he realized what Scott's silence meant, and he could hear the older man's hard swallow. Boyd and Derek have been close, both of them had saved the others' life more than once. It must be a hard hit for him to know that his bother-in-arms, his friend, has fallen.

“Where you... How...” Boyd tried to say, but every time he tried to form a sentence his voice broke. Scott didn't answer, the thought of Derek thick in his throat. The silence hung heavy between them, and he felt as if he was suffocating from it.

“It wasn't your fault,” Boyd suddenly said. Scott raises his head in shock. He could see the numerous emotions beneath his surface, the storm raging underneath the dark skin, but also the stoicism that made out Boyd's character. He leaned further in, his eyes boring into Scott's. “It wasn't your fault. The Argents are the enemies. They are responsible for Derek's death, not you. Stop beating yourself up for it.”

Scott wasn't so sure of it, though, but Boyd's words gave him a little peace. And he was right.

The Argents were the enemies.

His attention was drawn then to the sound of two horses riding towards their end of the caravan. His blood froze in his veins when he spotted Kate and another younger woman riding towards them.

Back then when Kate was still Derek's fiancé Scott had liked her. Sometimes he had been intimidated by her, by her self-confidence, but overall she had been nice to him. Now he only saw a false snake whenever he looked at her.

“My, my. Who do we have here,” she said, a bright smile on her face. She rode up to Peter, looking down on him from her horse. The other woman, more of a girl really, followed her, though she didn't took so much delight in the sight of her prisoners, looking more uncomfortable in her skin than anything else.

“Let's see. Uncle Peter, Scott with the pretty brown eyes, and the two lapdogs,” Kate mocked while she looked over their rows, ignoring Jackson's protest at the nickname. Then she frowned suddenly, putting a finger to her lips as if she was thinking something over. “But someone is missing. Who could it be? Ah! I know! Our lovely Derek. Where could he be?” Kate openly laughed at them, taking delight on the hatred and distress on their faces.

When she calmed down again she brought her horse even closer to Peter, leaning down a bit as if she was sharing a secret with him. “Do you want to know what happened to him?” she asked him, though loud enough that everyone could hear her.

Peter didn't respond. He stoically looked ahead, his eyes never flickering towards Kate even a second, but Scott could see how much her word got under his skin. His hands were clenched into tight fists and his jaw was set in a tense line while he gritted his teeth in anger.

“I found him on the field,” Kate went on. “He was lying in the dirt with two arrows in his body, but he was still breathing, although he was more drowning in his won blood to be honest. Do you know what I did?” she asked again. Scott was morbidly enraptured by her words, icy dread flooding his body. He wanted to turn away, wanted to cover his ears and stop listening. He didn't want to know what she did. But he couldn't turn away.

“I took my sword and put and end to his miserable little life before I let the crows feed on his corpse.”

To Scott's complete surprise Peter suddenly leaped forward and tried to grab Kate and drag her down her horse. But the soldiers guarding them intervened before he could get to her. One of them grabbed him while another came up and punched Peter in the stomach.

Kate meanwhile had straightened in her saddle, her head thrown back while she laughed at him. She turned her horse and rode back to the front of the caravan. The young woman beside her hesitated to follow her, giving them a look before she rode off as well. For a second Scott believed to see sympathy in the girl's eyes.

The guards let up from Peter who still tried to catch his breath from the punch. His gaze was fixed on the spot Kate has disappeared to, his eyes full of venom and hatred.

“I'm sorry,” Scott suddenly said. He just couldn't hold it in anymore. It was his fault that Derek was dead, that his father had to suffer because of his incompetence. “It was my fault. If I had been stronger-”

“You didn't do anything wrong,” Peter interrupted him. His body was still tense, but when he finally turned his head towards his son his eyes softened for a fraction before they hardened again. “The Argents have killed him, and I make sure they will pay for it with their lives. Every single one of them.”

 

xXx

 

The march to the capital was long and hard. For days they were wandering through forests and fields, and although spring as just begun the sun was already hot in the sky. The captives got little rations and water, and more often than not Scott saw his men collapse from weakness and dehydration.

But some other soldiers were dying from a completely different cause. They have all been injured by arrows during the battle, though their wounds haven't been grave enough to kill them. But now this very injuries seemed to kill them off, and soon they've found out that the arrows they've been hit with must have been poisoned.

It was a painful and gruesome death, and sometimes Scott could hear their whimpers when he lay down to sleep in the night. The ones who were too weak to walk on were swiftly killed off by the Argents.

After four days they could finally make out the walls surrounding the capitol. Some houses stood outside the gates, but they looked puny and miserable beside the giant bulwark. The people living in them looked skinny and sick, their clothed ripped, and when Scott looked closer he could see that the houses were nothing more than trash hammered together to give some tiny amount of shelter.

As soon as the caravan entered through the giant wooden gate they were met with a gigantic crowd of people. Their cheers and applause was deafening when they walked down the main street that led though the whole town down towards the castle which Scott could already see in the distance, it's high towers rising into the sky.

The stone that his his arms took him by surprise. And it wasn't the last one. People were throwing stones and rotten vegetables at the captive northerners, and when Scott was hit by a tomato in the face he wanted to bury himself in humiliation. Up front he could hear Kate and Gerard laughing all the way down the street.

He was nearly grateful when they finally reached the palace. Nearly.

Scott was taken aback by the cheer decadence and grandeur of the place.

Giant marble pillars reached towards the ceiling where plastering was lining bright and incredibly detailed frescoes. Beaten gold was adorning bigger than life statues standing at the walls, showing great victories and rulers of the South, no doubt all of them Argents. Paintings and delicate vases standing on esthetic and shining mahogany cabinets, giant candelabras of crystal hanging from the ceiling.

Everywhere, in every hall and every room they passed, they were met with riches and treasuries. The wealth was so open on display that Scott could barely grasp it. In the North they were anything but poor, but except of a few paintings telling their family history and the history of their country they barely had any riches or embellishments showing in their castle.

Or rather, _showed_ in the castle. All of it has been eaten by the flames.

The further they got to the dungeon, though, the less treasuries stood on display until they were only surrounded by gray brick walls. Gerard and his family as well as most of the southern soldiers have already left them, only some guards accompanied the captives down into the prison.

One of the guard gruffly cut Scott's bonds with a knife and shoved him into one of the cells. Scowling Scott rubbed at his wrists to get the blood properly flowing again and winced when he brushed over the scraped and tender skin.

Peter was shoved after him just a few seconds later, as well as three other soldiers before the door of their cell was shut closed and they heard the keys turning in the lock. Faintly they heard the guards and the other captives bustling outside before, after a while, it went silent.

With a sigh Peter let himself fall down in one of the corners. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall while he rested his hands on his knees.

“And what now?” Scott asked him, though he already suspected what the answer might be.

“Now,” Peter said defeated, ”we wait.”

 


	5. Moonhaulm

 

Jennifer was worried. After two days the stranger still didn't wake up, and his fever was rising steadily. At first she had thought that his wounds have been infected, but when she had removed his bandages to inspect them she had seen the black lines extending from the injuries indicating an aconite poisoning.

The man's body was already weak to begin with - from the blood loss, the cold of the water, and his head injury - but this poisoning, although normally not grave if discovered in time, could very much get him killed in his condition. The problem was, though, that because of the winter Jennifer's reserves of the antidote – moonhaulm - was scarce. She would have to get to the local healer in the village to get what she needed.

Carefully Jennifer wiped a wet cloth over the man's face, his body covered in sweat and his skin burning with fever. He was still deathly pale, and she feared that he wouldn't survive the next night without the dote.

She tucked the blanket tighter around his shivering body before she stood up towards the door. She wrapped a shawl around her shoulders before she stepped out of the door and went down the path to the village. 

It wasn't often that she socialized with other people nowadays. Whenever she went to the market she felt unwelcomed. The hostility the people were throwing her way was palpable. She could always see the hate and fear in their eyes, and always she tried to get back home as fast as she could.

Jennifer took a few deep breaths while she walked down the path towards the village. The uncomfortable feeling was bubbling up inside her again, and if she had the choice she would rather stay to herself, but the man currently dying in her bed was counting on her. She was a druid, and if she let a man die just because it was inconvenient for her she should be ashamed of herself.

She tried to ignore the stares the village people gave her. Stubbornly she looked ahead, hoping that they wouldn't take that as a reason to start a fight. It has already happened that an older man had took a look of her as a reason to chase her out of the settlement because she had “tried to curse his soul”.

She hadn't been able to set a foot into the village for nearly five months.

So she was trying to look as inconspicuous as possible while she walked through the streets and maneuvered through the crowds. Her destination was the healer's house, the person that probably hated her the most. Mr Tate was a sour, lonely and bitter grump who got personally offended whenever someone came to Jennifer when they needed something instead of him.

Taking another calming breath Jennifer stood in front of the house before she steeled herself before she opened the door and stepped inside. The room was dimly lit, but need and tidy, although sparsely decorated.

Immediately Tate was in her face, invading her personal space and glaring daggers at her face. Uncomfortable Jennifer stepped away from him until her back hit the wall, but she still held his stare. “What do you want?” the man asked her gruffly.

“I need moonhaulm,” Jennifer answered, not wasting any time with pleasantries or manners. It was useless beating around the bush, and he would probably try to accuse her of trying to bewitch him and twist his mind with her words.

Tate just chuckled darkly. “Why should I give it to you? Who knows what you plan on doing with it, witch. Why don't you just grow it yourself?”

“I have money. I can pay you,” Jennifer argued back, a stone settling in her stomach while she ignored his last question. He didn't need to know that she had a wounded prince of the North in her house.

“Oh? You can?” the man said mockingly, taking a step forward. “And how did you get this money?” His voice was dripping with venom.

Jennifer wanted to take another step back, but she already stood at the wall. She still met his eyes head on, not backing down from the challenge. “Do you want I or not?” She just wanted to get away as soon as possible, but showing weakness in this man's presence was fatal.

Tate seemed to think about it for a moment, assessing her with a curious look before he seemed to come to a decision. “Four pieces of gold.”

Jennifer ground her teeth together, partly in anger, partly to stop herself from saying something she would regret. The price was thrice as high as the moonhaulm was actually worth, but she knew that it was only so high because it was she who asked for it. She grabbed her thin purse from her belt and fished out the coins and pushed them into his waiting hand without saying a word.

She was just glad that they had a deal and she could go back home.

Tate grinned at her and vanished into the back of the room. He opened a drawer of his cabinet with a key and grabbed a bundle of moonhaulm before he locked it again and handed her her purchase.

Quickly Jennifer grabbed it and flew out of the door and back onto the street, happy to be back in the open again and away from that man.

Whenever she was near Tate she feared for her life. From all the people in the village she trusted him the most to kill her off one day. Not only because he hated her, but also because he had the skills to do it himself without anybody noticing.

Not that anybody would care anyway.

She was ducking her head when she rushed through the streets and back to her house, but while she was looking to the ground she promptly ran into a body. Hastily she began to apologize and hid the moonhaulm behind her back before she noticed who stood in front of her.

“Why the hurry?” Adrian Harris asked her. From all the people she could have run into it had to be him. Ever since she had come to this village Adrian Harris had frightened her. Not because he had hurt her. Not because he spit at her. She feared him because he seemed to _like_ her, in his own twisted ways.

That just wasn't how people treated her in the South, and the fact that he wasn't openly hostile towards her made her more than a little suspicious.She has never actually been with a man, but she wasn't _naïve_. She knew _exactly_ what he wanted.

“I just wanted to go back home,” Jennifer answered his question and tried to step around Harris, but he mimicked her movement and kept blocking her path.

“And what have you been doing here? All alone?” Harris asked back curiously, and the smirk on his lips send a shiver down her spine. “Maybe you visited someone? Someone special?”

“No, no one. Nobody would want me to visit anyway,” Jennifer said, taking a step back to get a little distance between them. She felt uncomfortable being to close to him.

“You could visit _me_ any time you would like,” Harris said, and what he implied, the way his voice was rumbling in his chest made nausea flare in Jennifer's stomach.

“I'm sorry, but I have to go. My chicken need feeding and I have to take care of my garden,” Jennifer said, hoping that Harris would finally let her pass.

Thankfully he stepped aside, and Jennifer held back a relieved sigh while she said her goodbye and walked past him. “Like I said: You can visit me any time,” He called after her, and Jennifer could feel his eyes lingering and roaming over her frame, and it send a cold shiver down her back right to where a cold, thick knot has settled in her guts.

No one bothered her on her way after that, everyone avoiding her path as much as they could. A weight lifted off her shoulders when her house finally came into view, and she quickened her steps. When Jennifer stepped through her door she leaned her back against the wood and closed her eyes for a moment while she tried to calm her heavy breathing, her heart still hammering in her chest from the leftover adrenaline. The tension in her body she hadn't noticed until now slowly began to settle, and after a deep sigh she opened her eyes again.

The stranger was still lying on her bed at the other side of the room. Grabbing the moonhaulm a little tighter she walked over to the cabinet beside her stove to her right and opened on of the many drawers. She gathered a mortar and pestle and set them on her table, setting the moonhaulm beside it before she grabbed a bucket and went outside to her well to fill it with water.

Decanting the water into an iron teapot she placed it over the fireplace to heat it up, feeding the dying flames with a little additional wood.

Carefully Jennifer separated the blossoms of the moonhaulm, putting most of them into the mortar and the rest into a ceramic cup, putting some other of her dried herbs hanging off the ceiling into both vessels.

Silently she worked, filling the hot water into the cup to brew a tea after her pot began to whistle, and also a few drops into the mortar to create a paste to put on the prince's wounds. When the tea was ready she fished the blossoms and herbs out of the cup before she carried it to the bed. Jennifer sat down on the edge and grabbed the stranger at the back of his head, lifting it up while holding the cup to his lips.

Carefully she made him drink the tea, but as slowly as she instilled him the medication, eventually he began to choke and cough. Jennifer pulled the cup away and put it back on the ground while she put the man's head gently back onto the pillow.

She just wanted to return to her paste to prepare new bandages when she heard him groan. When she looked back down on him she saw his eyelids flutter before they opened sluggishly. Excitedly Jennifer sat back down, cupping the man's cheek to ground him and keep him conscious. He turned his head towards her touch, his gaze following her arm towards her face.

“What's your name?” Jennifer asked him gently when she was sure she had his attention. The man frowned at her question before he took a deep breath.

“'m Derek,” he mumbled, his eyes already closing again.

“Derek, you have to stay with me for a while,” Jennifer said, tapping his stubbly cheek slightly to pull him back into consciousness. She raised her other hand and held her thumb and forefinger in front of his face. “How many fingers do you see?” She asked him insistently.

Sluggishly the man – Derek – moved his gaze to her, his eyes glazed by fever. He furrowed his brows while he looked at her, and Jennifer wanted to repeat her question when he finally answered. “Two.”

“Do you know where you are?”

Again it took him a moment to answer. “South,” he said nearly indistinguishable, his eyes already falling close again. Jennifer let him, watching him as he drifted back to sleep.

She knew that he has been royalty ever since she has seen the triskele when she had treated his wounds yesterday, but she hadn't thought that it was Derek Hale - the second son of Queen Talia Hale - who she had knit back together.

With a tired sigh Jennifer stood up again, walking back to her table to work on the poultice and the bandages. She just had to make sure that a potential heir to the throne of the North doesn't die under her hands.

Really, no pressure.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to say that I know that an aconite-poisoning doesn't have this symptoms and generally doesn't work this way. I just wanted to get a little Teen Wolf into the story.  
> Also the plant that poses as an antidote doesn't exist. I made it up because there wasn't a specific plant etc. that functions as an antidote to aconite in real nature, otherwise I would have used that.


	6. Gratitude

Jennifer was relieved when Derek's fever began to break the next day, if only slightly. At least he wasn't in imminent danger of losing his life.

When she had removed his bandages this morning she could see that the black aconite-veins were going back already and his wounds looked better as well, less aggravated and tender.

Derek was also stirring more often now that he has woken up once. It couldn't be long until he was conscious again, so Jennifer began to make a soup to give him back a little of his strength and warmth back when he woke up again.

The vegetables in her garden were going on well thanks to the special fertilizer she has made herself and her knowledge as a druid. They weren't completely ready yet - a little small to be seasoned already - but she put them into her soup nonetheless. The few herbs and spices she had picked up as well would help getting Derek unto his feet, too. And they didn't taste all that bad, either.

Her chicken have cackled happily in the back of her garden while she has tended to her plants, and while Jennifer has worked in the warm spring sun she nearly forgot where she was, who exactly lay in her bed and in how much danger both of them actually were in.

There was only she and the work she loved so much.

At one point a young woman has come up to Jennifer's house. Thanks the gods she has already been in the garden or the woman would have simply gone inside and seen Derek

People these days had no sense of privacy and courtesy. They didn't even knock to announce themselves. Jennifer always suspected that they hoped to catch her in the act of some witchcraft, so they could finally burn her on a stack or at least cast her out for good.

Jennifer quickly cut off a couple of leaved of one of her bushes and handed them over in exchange for a few coins.

Young women often came to her, and most of the time all of them wanted the same. A little fun but none of the consequences.

Jennifer herself never had to use the leaves for the contraceptive tea. Already in the North her training and then her work had always controlled her life. It came before anything else. She just didn't have had the TIME for romance and such, and now that she actually HAD the time she was in the South, so no one was interested a relationship. At least not with her.

Jennifer already knew that she was probably going to die as an old maid. When she was small she had always imagined herself with a husband, a couple of children – three maybe – and a warm house.

But that had been before her father died, and before she had set her mind onto becoming a druid to help people and to be closer to her faith.

Now being a druid was everything she had left, all the rest was out of her reach.

xXx

Derek felt as if his head was filled with wool and sawdust.

His whole body was sore and some parts hurt even more than others. Breathing proved to be a little difficult, and in the haze of his mind it had something to do with the blazing heat that was consuming his body.

His eyelids felt heavy, as if someone has put a weight onto each of them to prevent them from opening.

The only thing Derek wanted to do was to fall back asleep, but the throbbing pain was keeping him awake and pulled him out of this shady sphere between sleeping and waking and grounded him to reality.

He could hear footsteps and the cracking of a fire, as well as a scratching, like wood running against metal, while a bubbling filled the air.

When Derek opened his eyes he met a ceiling, bundles of twigs, leaves and flowers hanging down from it on little hooks and laces.

The room he was in wasn't very big and only dimly lit, on most parts only by the flames of a single fire. The whole house seemed to only consist of this one room, for Derek only saw one door.

Shelves and cabinets with books and jars lined the wall, and an old rocking chair stood in front of the fire place. A table stood in the middle of the room with two chairs, a stove standing beside it.

In front of that stove stood a woman, her brown hair gathered in a messy bun while she stirred something inside a pot.

Whatever it was, it smelled heavenly and made Derek's mouth water.

But when he wanted to say something to make himself noticeable he had to cough from the dryness of his throat. It was as if he hasn't drunk anything in days.

The woman turned around to him and when she saw he was awake she quickly filled a cup with water from a carafe that stood on the table and hurried over to him.

Gently she raised Derek's head and instilled the content into his mouth. Derek drank as much as he could before she pulled the cup away again.

The woman put the cup onto the ground, but didn't stand up from the edge of the bed he was lying in. "How are you feeling?" she asked him gently.

"Sore," Derek answered, and the woman smiled in amusement. She looked familiar to him, as if he had seen her before, but Derek couldn't remember. It was like he tried to remember a dream he has had a short while ago.

"It was to be expected. You barely made it through the night," the woman replied while she raised one of her hands and raised the bandage around his head to look at the wound under it.

Although she was a woman Derek could see and feel the calluses on the palm of her hand and the dirt under her nails in the dim light of the fire. She had to work hard every day to have such rough hands.

"Do you feel dizzy, disorientated or nausea?” she asked him next while her gray-blue eyes bore into his own as if she was searching for something.

Derek shook his head, and although the motion intensified the throbbing in his head he didn't feel any of the mentioned symptoms, though he had to admit he felt rather hungry.

As if on cue his stomach began to grumble, and the woman smiled in amusement. If Derek had the strength (and blood) left for it he would blush in embarrassment, but instead he was grateful when the woman stood up and turned towards the stove to pour him a bit of the soup that had to cook in the pot into a bowl.

While Derek watched her he noticed her strange clothes, and remembered that women in the South wore dresses this thin because of the heat.

That was the moment when everything came crashing down on him.

Kate, the fire, the battle, the arrows.

He remembered how he had fallen into the Kanima, and how he has hit his head and fell unconscious. The river should have carried him further into the country, which meant that he was deep in the heart of the South than he has been every before.

When the woman came back from the stove and set onto the edge of the bed again with a bowl in her hand Derek knew that she had to be a southerner. Underneath the blanket he felt that he was bare from the waist upwards, so she had to have seen the triskele on his left shoulder, the sign that he was royalty, the sign that he was a Hale.

Suspiciously Derek eyes the woman while she stirred the steaming soup in the bowl with a spoon before she gathered a bit of the food on it and held it to his mouth, but Derek didn't move to swallow It’s content.

The woman sighed a little exasperated and let her hand sink again. "If I wanted you dead I would have left you to die on the river bank," she told him before she raised the spoon to her mouth a second later to her own mouth and - without hesitation - swallowed it's content.

"See? Not poisoned," she declared and held the newly filled spoon to his lips once more.

Derek was still a little suspicious of why a southerner would want to help him, but he couldn't argue with her logic, so he opened his mouth and let her feed him.

It was a little embarrassing for him to be fed like a toddler, but his body was just too heavy and weak to sit up and do it on his own.

But the woman didn't dwell on it. Silently she fed him the soup, and when nothing was left she simply stood up and carried the now empty bowl back to the stove.

Now that he was fed and the niggling feeling of hunger in his stomach was satisfied only the pain of his injuries was left that kept him from sleeping, but Derek could easily ignore that. He had years of practice in this particular art.

He felt how his eyelids began to close again in fatigue. "You should go back to sleep. You need every bit of rest you can get," he heard the woman say above him, her eyes gently looking down on him while she tucked the blankets tighter around his body like a mother would do to her child.

But Derek was just too tired to protest. "What's your name?" he asked sluggishly when she wanted to leave again.

This woman has saved his life when she could have simply left him to die. She has risked her life to help him and still did by housing and nursing him. And, southerner or not, she deserved his gratitude.

"I'm Jennifer," she answered him with no hesitation and gave him a small smile.

"Thank you, Jennifer," Derek murmured before his eyes closed on their own and he fell back into a deep slumber.

Later in his dreams he could swear he saw gray-blue eyes and a gentle smile.


	7. Dreams and Nightmares

_5 days after the battle_

Derek was getting better since Jennifer was able to get a hold on the moonhaulm, though only gradually. His body didn’t only have to heal from his injuries but from a poisoning as well, and it took a lot of energy from him.

Therefore he spend most of the time sleeping.  Only occasionally he would wake up, and Jennifer would make sure when he did that he would drink enough and would get some food into him. Mostly bread and broth so his body could refill its energy recourses but his stomach wouldn’t protest and throw everything back up.

But what surprised Jennifer at first was that Derek even wanted to talk with her when he was awake.

It started with a simple compliment. “Your soup is delicious,” he had said.

It came out of the blue and has totally thrown Jennifer off. The day before he had looked at her in animosity and suspicion, yes, almost _hatred_ , but Derek had looked sheepish when he made the compliment, so she had taken it as an attempt to apologize and break the ice between them.

Of course Jennifer had to ruin it and start babbling about her vegetables, her garden and the fertilizer she used before she could regain the control over her mouth and keep it shut. Derek had only looked amused, so Jennifer hoped that she hadn’t made a _complete_ fool out of herself.

Thank the gods Derek continued the conversation without commenting on her loose mouth, talking about how the food reminded him of home and a warm fire after a hard day in the cold.

His voice was still a bit hoarse after the long disuse, but Jennifer had to admit that she liked the soft sound of it. It was something she hadn’t expected at all by someone of his built and appearance. It helped the feeling of loneliness inside her while she listened to him.

Of course these conversations never lasted very long, for Derek got exhausted rather quickly, and he soon fell asleep again every time.

But those sleeps were not always restful. Sometimes he would groan and thrash in his slumber, murmuring things about a fire, about Kate Argent and his older sister Laura.

When he had such nightmares Jennifer would go to him, hold his hand and caress his cheek. The gentle touch would soothe him nearly immediately, and he could continue his sleep for the rest of the day.

She never asked him about his nightmares, and Derek would never tell her. It was like a silent agreement, a little bit of privacy in this cramped little hut.

But Jennifer didn’t expect Derek to give up this privacy so quickly.

She was quietly sitting in her rocking chair by the fire, sewing and patching up some holes she got into her dress when she was walking through the underbush in the forest when he had a nightmare again.

She looked up when she heard Derek stirring and whimpering again. She waited a few moments to see if the nightmare passed on its own, but when it didn’t Jennifer sat down her sewing, stood up and walked to the bed. Sitting back down on the edge of the and she reached out for Derek’s hand, but then he already awoke.

His eyes were wide, frightful and disorientated, and Jennifer gently pushed him back down onto the bed when he wanted to sit up. He sought out her face, and when he recognized who she was and where he was exactly he relaxed and let out a relieved sigh.

“Are you all right?” Jennifer asked him softly to not startle him further.

Derek swallowed hard before he shook his head. “No, but it was just a bad dream. I’m fine.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Derek looked at her with wide eyes, surprised that she broke this silent agreement they have formed between them. He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but then his expression closed up. He closed his mouth again and turned his head towards the wall, not looking at her.

After a minute of silence Jennifer stood up from the edge and walked back to her rocking chair. She picked up her sewing, pulled one of her two chairs from the table to the side of the bed and sank down on it, resuming her quiet work.

When he was ready he would talk.

It took less time than she had anticipated, though.

“I saw my family burning,” Derek eventually said, his voice not more than a whisper and thick with emothions. Jennifer stopped what she was doing and looked up from her hands. Derek was still staring at the wall, avoiding her eyes.

“When I close my eyes I can still hear them screaming. Not only my family. The servants as well, and the stable boys, and the guards, and it is as if the whole country is burning in that fire, as if all of my people get burned alive.

“I want to help them, I want to run into the burning castle and get everyone out and save them, but I can’t move. My body just wouldn’t listen to me.

“I can hear Kate laughing. I can see her standing in front of the flames and she is _laughing_. I can see Gerard and this damn proud _smile_ on his face.”

 Derek’s voice was trembling with rage, fury and hatred, and his whole body was shaking from the intensity of his anger before it seemed as if his rage was washed away by something else, and when he spoke again his voice was trembling from a far different reason.

“I can see my uncle Peter coming out of the fire. His skin is still burning and his flesh is melting off his face. I see him coming to me and I can smell his burning flesh before- Before he rips my heart right out of my chest with his bare hands.”

That was the point when Derek turned his head around and looked at Jennifer. His eyes were red and filled with unshed tears.

“I only want my people - my family - to be safe, and they can’t be as long as the Argents are still around. I just want peace, and that’s why I have agreed to marry Kate and why I would die for my country.”

Jennifer smiled and rested her hand on Derek’s shoulder, squeezing it reassuringly. He closed his eyes at her touch, trying to regain his composure.

“This honorability and the willingness to sacrifice oneself is what I miss most about the North,” Jennifer says when the silence between them stretched on for far too long.

Derek’s eyes snapped towards her by her words. “You’re from the North?” he asked her, surprised and a little confused. Jennifer nodded solemnly, her smile vanishing.

“That’s also where I learned to be a druid, but those are not common here in the South, so the people here are avoiding me as much as possible. They think I’m some kind of witch.” A humorless laugh escaped her lips at her words. This time it was her turn to avoid Derek’s eyes.

“Then why did you come here? And why don’t you just go back?” Derek dug deeper.

Jennifer felt the stinging of her old scar when she thought about why she had to leave the North, and unconsciously she reached to her side and covered the place where the knife has impaled her with the palm of her hand.

Slowly she began to tell Derek what has happened, how she and Kali grew up together, the different ways of profession they chose. She told him about Ennis, about Kali’s crush on him and the way he had whored around with every woman the crossed his path and had totally ignored her.

Jennifer told about the time when Ennis had approached her, of Kali’s jealousy and how she had tried to kill her while she hunted her straight through the country.

The words stumbled out of her mouth on their own after she summoned the courage to utter the first sentence, and Jennifer felt as if a giant weight got taken from her shoulders. All this years there has been no one who she could turn to with her problems, with her pain and her sadness, and now that there was someone who listened, who _cared,_ she couldn’t stop the words - her worries and fears - from leaving her.

“Kali is one of the best trackers and hunters of the country. I fear that she will find out if I go back. I miss my home, more than anything in the world, but I would rather much stay alive,” Jennifer finished with a sad smile. Only now did she look up from her hands and into Derek’s eyes.

They were soft, sympathetic and understanding. For the first time in years someone was looking at her that way, and Jennifer didn’t want to look away in fear this was the last time someone would meet her with this look in their eyes, that no one would look at her that way ever again.

When his hand touched hers in her lap a warmth spread through Jennifer that filled her from her hairline down to the tip of her toes. Derek’s hand was rough and calloused and still unnaturally warm from the fever he still spotted, but it was comforting her troubled emotions, and secretly Jennifer thought that Derek needed the comfort just as much as she did.

But Jennifer soon felt the strange intimacy of the moment overwhelming her. She pulled her hand away and avoided his eyes. She immediately missed the warmth of Derek’s touch, but nonetheless she stood up, her needlework long forgotten and hurried outside, claiming that she had to check on her chicken.

The cool air of the evening helped her to overcome her embarrassment about the situation and clear her head again.

Her chicken were mostly asleep already, but still Jennifer spend quite some time outside to make her lie more believable, and to wait out any awkward moment that could occur with Derek.

In retrospect she knew that she acted silly, but the situation has just been too foreign to her.

When she went inside again Derek already fell asleep, and with a relieved sigh Jennifer settled in her rocking chair again. She pulled a thin blanket over herself, attempting to find a little sleep as well, Derek’s warm hand following her into her dreams.


	8. Kindness

_7 days after the battle_

They’ve only been in their cell for 24 hours and Scott already hated it.

Little to no light shone into this dungeon, and like on their way to the capital they got very little water and food. The little flicker of light that came in wasn’t even enough for them to tell if it was night or day. The temperature stayed the same - cold and moist - and sometimes Scott could swear he could hear the soft feet of rats running through the wall.

The wet and molding hay laid out in their cell did little to soften the hard floor, and it was emanating a decaying and foul odor.

All of them cowered together for warmth and comfort, and even Peter didn’t say anything about the close physical contact. But Scott noticed that one of the soldiers who got thrown in with them was sitting as far away from their little group as possible. He found it strange that, in this hostile environment, this soldier would choose to be alone and isolated from the others.

Licking his chapped lips Scott stood up from their little group and walked over to the soldier.

“Come on, you don’t have to sit over there alone,” Scott said to him, but the soldier only turned further away. Scott couldn’t see his face, and a leather barrette was covering the little bit of head he could see. He was rather small and scrawny, probably one of the draftees.

Frowning Scott leaned down and gripped the man’s soldier. “Are you all right?” he asked a little worried, the memory of the poisoned soldiers still fresh in his mind. The soldier didn’t speak, though. He only nodded his head and tried to shrug off Scott’s hand.

Scott got the strange feeling that something was wrong with this man. Suspicious he tried to turn him around, but the soldier was struggling against his grip. After a few seconds of struggle Scott was able to get a good grip on the man’s shoulder and turn him around.

He couldn’t belief what he saw.

“Cora!” Peter exclaimed outraged when he got a good view on the man’s face, the same man who, in fact, was a girl.

Angrily Cora shoved Scott’s hand off her shoulder, but when she looked at her uncle she ducked her head and tried to make herself as small as possible.

“What in the name of everything that’s good and holy are you doing here?!” Peter asked her, but the low tone of his voice did nothing to disguise the anger in it.

“I wanted to let Kate pay for what she did!” Cora shot back, her own voice dripping with venom and hatred while a wild look crossed her face. In this moment Scott noticed the similarities all the Hales shared, an anger all of them expressed in the same frightening way. Like a wolf set on ripping it’s pray apart.

“You were supposed to stay home!” Peter chastised his niece with a stern look.

“What home?” Cora replied bitterly. “It’s only ashes now thanks to this woman, and Scott was allowed to come, too, after all!”

“That’s not the point!” Peter nearly yelled, and again Cora cowered away from her uncle in fright. “The point is that Laura got gravely injured by the fire and Derek came with me to war. You were supposed to secure the line in case both Laura and Derek died. And now Derek’s dead!”

Cora flinched visibly at the words thrown in her face, and Scott, too, took a step backwards. Again a picture of Derek shot into his head, how the arrows stuck out of his body.

“I know,” Cora whispered, avoiding her eyes and looking at the floor. Scott knelt down beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

His step-father sighed in defeat, but before he could say another thing they could hear someone coming from outside.

“Quick! Hide her! The Argents are not to know that they have Cora as well!” Peter ordered, and Scott quickly shoved his step-cousin behind his back while she pulled the barrette over her head, shoving her braid into it.

The following minutes were filled with tense silence before they heard the clacking of keys before their door swung open. A shy and miserable looking young guard stood in the flickering light of the torches. He had curly blond hair and sad eyes.

Most of the soldiers who have guarded them during their time as prisoners have been bulky, grim and generally brutes, the total opposite of the one now standing in front of them.

This one had a tray of food in his hand, mostly dry bread and watery soup, together with two carafes with water. Like always it was far less than 5 people actually needed, and even less considered that it was one of only two times they got something to eat and drink during the day.

The guard carefully sat the tray down on the ground in the middle of the cell, and when he was straightening again Scott was surprised that this one guard didn’t try to harass them. Even if some soldiers didn’t kick or beat them they would at least insult or jest with them. None ever left them in peace. Actually, this guard looked as if he wanted to be down here as much as they did.

“Thank you,” Scott said shortly before the young guard vanished again. He could feel the eyes of everyone on him for the gratitude, but he didn’t care.

Scott saw that he got the guard by surprise. He was staring at him as if he had grown another head. He looked as if he wanted to reply something, his mouth already half open, but then he swallowed and just nodded before he locked the cell again.

 

 

It’s been a long time since anybody has thanked Isaac. Years in fact since anybody had been remotely kind to him.

Everything had to do with his mother. She had been the daughter of a merchant from the North. That’s how she had come to the South, and that’s how his father who had been a soldier himself, had fallen in love with her.

They have married on a whim and not a year later Isaac was born.

Isaac couldn’t remember much of his early childhood, especially of his father. He only knew that his parents have really loved each other. He could still remember how his mother had wept when his father had died when bandits raided the town they lived in. After that his mother had been Isaac’s whole world, not only because she had been the only parent he had left, but also because no one wanted to have anything to do with a widowed woman of the North and her mongrel son.

Isaac had still nightmares from that one night these men had broken into their house. His mother has hidden him in the closet before the men and kicked in the door. Isaac could still see how they threw her to the ground, how they have ripped her nightgown from her body. He had squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears with his hands, but he had still been able to hear his mother’s screams and the men’s grunting.

Back then, as a child, Isaac hadn’t known what they’ve done to his mother. But now he did, and the memory churned his stomach and made him want to vomit. Ever since that night Isaac had been afraid of small spaces. It reminded him too much of what happened, how these men have brutally raped his mother, how they have killed her afterwards.

No one in town had wanted to take him in after he has turned orphan, so he had been sent to his father’s brother in the capital, Gévaudan.

After a week with his uncle he has wished that they had left him alone on the streets in his hometown. No one he met had cared about the bruises, the scratches or the broken bones.

Back then he had sworn to become a soldier - a guard - himself just like his father, to make sure no one had to endure what he had endured.

But nothing in his life ever went like he had planned to.

Because of his heritage he wasn’t trusted by the other soldiers. Like the people in his hometown they shunned him and cast him out. They shoved him off to do the jobs nobody else wanted to do, like standing in the cold, dark and moist dungeons to make sure none of the northern prisoners escaped.

“They are _your_ people after all!” they have said, not caring that Isaac had never sat a single foot into the North.

But now that he saw them he pitied the prisoners. Even Isaac didn’t get food this bad or lodging this poor.

So it was a surprise when he heard this northerner thank him. Somehow Isaac had the suspicion that he didn’t receive it for the tray he brought, but for something else. How could it be that this single northerner, this single stranger, gave him more kindness in less than a minute than he received even from his own family?


	9. To the Fields and Forests Beyond

_12 days after the battle_

The only way how Scott could tell how many days have already passed was by the meals they got.

Most of them were brought by the silent young guard from the first day, and Scott was glad for it. He never attempted to hurt or insult any of them like the other guards would out of personal pleasure, and every time Scott would thank the young man for it.

After a few times the guard began to smile at him whenever he uttered his gratitude, and at some point Scott had dared to ask the young man for his name.

He was pretty sure that Isaac was the only soldier guarding them, and Scott pitied him for it. Standing at one place the whole day and watching over people who couldn’t escape anyway had to be the most boring and dreadful task mankind could have invented.

One day he had asked Isaac about it, why he was standing on guard, and all alone on top of that. Scott had seen how the answer to his question had affected Isaac, so he expected there was a far more complex reason behind it than a simple “I picked the short straw”. He had looked sad, broken and misplaced.

Scott would have liked to talk to Isaac a little more, but every time he tried to engulf him into a conversation he claimed that he had to lock the cell again. If anyone saw that he was keeping it open he would be in great trouble. He had looked horrified of what those consequences might be, so Scott nodded every time in understanding. He didn’t want to get Isaac into trouble just so he could get another dialog partner than his broody father and even broodier step-cousin. The other two soldiers were just drowning in their self-pity.

But one day Isaac had opened the hatch through which the food normally was shoved through ancient times ago before it became too small, so Scott and Isaac had been able to talk. He suspected that Isaac welcomed this little distraction just as much as he did.

“What is the North like?” Isaac has asked him one day. Both of them had sat leaning against the wall on the ground on the opposite sides of the door. They couldn’t see each other very well, but it didn’t bother them.

“Cold. For the most part,” Scott told his new friend fondly. He could hear Isaac chuckling through the hatch. “The people there are mostly rough, blunt, sturdy and stubborn, but honest and loyal.”

“I’ve heard that there are witches and warlocks in your country…”

“They are no ‘witches’, boy,” Peter piped in gruffly. “That’s just a rumor in the South. The people you mean are called druids.”

Scott shot his father a dirty look for interfering in their conversation, but he couldn’t blame him. It was practically the only form of entertainment all of them got.

“What’s a druid?” was Isaac’s next question.

“They are something like healers and clerics all in one. They are our connection to the Nemeton, a holy oak tree that is the residence of the gods; the Virgin, the Warrior, the Healer, the Philosopher and the Guardian.  They know a lot about plants and such things, and if you have a broken arm or a sickness they are the ones to go to.”

“You even have different believes than we have,” Isaac murmured to himself, but Scott still caught the remark.

“In what do the people in your country believe in?”

“In nothing really, I guess. People here are more set on helping themselves than asking for help by anyone else, including gods. Not that anyone would grand their help anyway.”

“Sounds lonely.” Scott thought about all the times he needed help and how even complete strangers would have come up to him in concern and asked if they could do something to help. That was before his mother has met Peter, shortly after his father has left them. And even after that there have always been Peter, Laura, Talia, and of course Derek he could turn to.

“When my uncle hit me nobody cared. They said that it was my own problem, so I had to deal with it on my own,” Isaac confessed, and it broke Scott’s heart a little to hear him so sad and disappointed.

“I’m sorry, Isaac,” he said, and he could hear Isaac hum in acceptance.

“Is your castle anything like the Argent’s?” came the next question after a longer and awkward stretch of silence.

“No, it was nothing like this. It hadn’t all this riches on display. It was… yeah, modest would have been a good word to describe it. And steadfast. Like its country’s people formed into stone. ‘The Beacon’ the people have called it because of its high middle tower and because it sat on top of a hill. You could already see it even if you were still many miles away. That was, of course, before it was burned to the ground.”

“What do you mean?” Isaac asked a little confused.

Scott scowled and turned towards the door, and although he couldn’t see Isaac he could very much imagine his puzzled expression. Suddenly a thought crossed his mind. “Isaac, what have you been told about why there had been another battle between our countries?”

“Well… Your prince, Derek Hale, has tried to kill Lady Kate. She’s been able to escape, though, and King Gerard wanted Prince Derek’s head in return for the attempted murder of his daughter, but you refused.” Scott could hear how uncomfortable Isaac sounded, clearly trying to not offend anyone inside the cell by his retelling of events, but considering the prisoners he wasn’t doing a particularly good job anyway.

Cora scowled and gritted her teeth in anger while Peter looked as if he was going to implode according to the color of his head. “So the Argents aren’t even honest and honorable towards their own people!” Peter seethed and punched the wall in anger.

“What does he mean?” Isaac asked. He couldn’t see what was going on inside the cell, but he could hear that something was wrong.

“Isaac,” Scott started gently, “Derek didn’t want to kill Kate. She burned down The Beacon and fled back to the South.”

There was silence for a few long moments, but Scott could hear Isaac shifting closer to the hatch. “No, I mean… What?! But the king said that the only reason Derek accepted the proposal was because he wanted to see every Argent dead and it would play Kate right into his hand!”

“Derek accepted the proposal because he wanted _peace_! He would have never done anything that would provoke another fight. Kate burned down The Beacon. My cousin Laura got gravely injured and several people lost their lives in the flames. The castle is nothing but ruins and ashes now,” Scott explained. The thought that the Argent’s were lying to their own people to conceal their atrocities and justify their war irked him, but that they sullied Derek’s name and honor in such a way made him sick to the stomach, especially now that Derek couldn’t fend for himself anymore.

“No! But the king said-“

“The king _lied_ to you!” Peter ground out gruffly through his clenched teeth.

“How do I know that _you_ are not lying to me?” Isaac snapped back and Scott empathized with him. He had to feel confused and betrayed by his own lord.

“Why should we lie to you? We are held here as prisoners without a real chance of escaping or ever setting a foot out of here again in our lives, if we are not about to get executed publicly anyway. Lying to you over the cause of an already lost battle doesn’t gain us anything.” Peter’s voice sounded annoyed, but also defeated. He really believed that they were never getting out of here, and to see his father in such a position positively scared Scott, and the little hope her still harbored inside him that Peter would find a way out of here, died.

“OI! What are ya doin’ there?!” Scott heard someone say out in the corridor, and his blood momentarily froze when he realized that Isaac was in deep trouble.

“I- I just-“he could hear Isaac splutter before a loud smack echoed from outside. Scott could hear Isaac groan before the other man spoke again.

“Ya little piece of shit! I knew we should have never let ya guard that northern bastards!”

 Another smack.

“I always said that you would betray us after we did so much for you.”

And another.

“Did ya think you could get them outta  here?”

Isaac whimpered in pain.

“Leave him alone!” Scott yelled through the hatch and pressed his hand to the door as if it would magically open. His blood was soaring in his veins and his heart hammered in his chest while he heard Isaac struggling on the other side.

“Can’t even speak for yourself, can ya?!” The guard grunted out. Scott stumbled away from the door when he heard keys clacking against each other. The guard on the other side cursed before the lock went back and the door swung open.

Scott didn’t see the iron clad fist that hit him next. His vision became blurry and his ears were ringing when he braced his hands on the hard stone floor before he hit it with his face. A hand grasped onto the back of his shirt and pulled him back to his knees before another punch split his lip.

From the corner of his eyes he saw Cora jumping up and hanging onto the arm of the guard while she tried to stop him from punching him again, but the man was far bigger and stronger than she was, and he pushed her back to the floor with ease. In the struggle the leather barrette that had hid her head fell off, and her long braid slipped free when she fell.

Cold dread filled Scott when the guard stopped in his movements and stared at Cora. Or, more precisely, stared at the triskele tattooed on her neck. The same neck that has been concealed by the barrette only seconds before.

Booming laughter erupted from the man’s throat before he roughly pushed Scott to the ground. “Another Hale? Can’t believe it! Are ya so set on killing ya entire tribe? Ya’ more stupid than I thought.”

Cora glared at him while she stood up, and Peter took a menacing step towards the guard, his eyes not only throwing daggers at the man, but his ugly snarl also promising a painful death.

The guard didn’t stop in his glee, though, and quickly pulled his sword out of his sheath, holding it firmly in his hand against the upcoming threat, a smirk still glued to his lips.

“I bet the king will be pleased to hear of this little tidbit,” he said and snickered at the idea.

Slowly the guard walked backwards towards the door. Scott jumped to his feet and stood protectively in front of Cora.

Not that it would do her any good anymore. If the Argents knew that they had practically the entire royal line to the throne in their hands, who knew what they would do to them. Scott alone would be barely enough to protect Cora if something happened, but it still wouldn’t stop him from trying.

But just when the guard set a foot out of the door his face twisted into an ugly grimace. Confused he looked down on himself.

Scott followed his gaze and saw a hand gripping the handle of a sword that was buried in his side. The hand pulled back and the steel slit out of the body, glistening with warm, red blood.

With a groan the guard went down and left Isaac standing in his stead, a puddle of blood already coating the ground. He looked surprised at himself.

With an open mouth he stared at the now dead body to his feet and then at the sword in his hands. Blood spilled out of his nose and from a cut under his right eye.

Peter was the first one to break the spell that seemed to lie on all of them and glued them into place. With long steps he walked towards the dead guard. He pulled various knives from his armor and lay them to the sword now lying useless on the ground. With a last move of his hand Peter picked the chain of keys from the corpse’s belt and threw them at Scott who caught them out of reflex. “Free the others,” Peter ordered.

Quickly Scott made his way out of the door. Peter pressed the handle of one of the knives into his hand when he passed him. Without further ado Scott went to the first locked cell he could find. It took him a little time before he found the right key.

A bunch of draftees stood at the far wall of the cell, all of them with a worried expression on their faces. They relaxed when they saw he was not one of the Argent’s men, but they became a million times more confused.

Leaving the cell open Scott immediately walked on to the next door. This time he was met with the raised fists of Jackson and Boyd, both of them with a hard and determined glare in their eyes. They were short from attacking him when they recognized him.

“What the hell is going on?” Jackson demanded to know in irritation when he took a step forward.

“I’ll explain later. We have to hurry up now!” Scott answered hastily, already on his way to the next cell.

Isaac still stood over the corpse like a stature, and Jackson and Boyd eyes him and his bloody sword cautiously when they stepped out.

Peter was already checking the other corridors, but when Scott looked at him he shook his head. No one was coming. At least not yet.

Soon they were complete as far as Scott could tell, and everyone was tense with caution. The few weapons Peter could take away from the dead guard were carried by the two of them, Jackson and Boyd. Peter harshly shook Isaac’s stiff shoulders. “Boy, where is the exit? Come on, focus!”

The touch seemed to break him out of his stupor, and his face shot up from the corpse to first look at Peter, then at Scott and back again. “That way,” he said, pointing down the dark corridor to the right only lit by torches. “The armory is there as well, but that’s also where the guards have their common room. It’s the only way up and out of the dungeon.”

Peter cursed and rubbed his face with his free hand. Isaac was biting his lower lip before he seemed to come to a decision. He took a step towards Peter.

“I could help you.” Peter’s eyebrows shot up when he looked at Isaac, only to furrow again. “And how do I trust you? You belong to our enemies, and more important: How could you even help us?!”

“Didn’t he already prove himself?” Scott piped in, his gaze fixed on the dead guard lying in his own blood. “He already killed one of the guards to help us. He committed _treason_ to help us! If the Argents find out about this Isaac is as good as dead. He has as much to lose as we, and we have a better chance escaping with him than without.”

His stepfather still frowned. He obviously didn’t like the idea of letting an outsider, much less a man of the Argents, help them. He gritted his teeth in anger of his lack of options before he nodded and turned back to Isaac.

“You lead the way, we follow. First of all we have to overwhelm the other guards and get us some weapons from the armory.”

Isaac sheathed his sword and nodded grimly and began walking down the corridor he had previously pointed to. Scott was relieved that Peter agreed on letting him stay, and he could see that Isaac was, too. He couldn’t stand the thought that Isaac would have been executed for helping them save their own lives.

They followed quietly, careful to not make too much noise and draw attention to them. Soon the corridor turned to the right, and at the end stood a solid iron door. Light was shining out from under it and loud voices came through the metal.

“How many of you have weapons?”  Isaac asked. When he saw how little were really able to defend themselves he frowned. “I will cause a distraction, and then you attack to use their surprise for as long as it lasts, but it won’t be long.”

With that they went to press themselves against the wall behind the door so no one could see them when it swung open. Pulling out his keys Isaac began opening it, and his face got illuminated from the light within.

“Hey, Lahey! Where did you leave Ragna?!” Someone yelled, and others joined in.

Scott had to suppress a wince at the animosity and abasement in the voices. No wonder Isaac turned against them. A dog was getting dangerous if you kicked it too much.

“He had a problem with one of the cells,” Isaac said meekly. “He told me to fetch one of you.”

Scott heard something smack on a surface, a cursing and a chair scraping over the floor following it. He hard steps coming towards where he could see Isaac standing one step away from the open door. Scott gripped the handle of his knife tighter, shifting a little in his hiding spot, read to charge at any moment.

Like the other guard this guy didn’t see the blade coming either. Again Isaac pulled his sword and thrust it into the gap between two parts of his armor. He had just enough time to move to the side o not get run over before Peter and the others stormed into the room.

Scott had little time to orientate himself. Around a dozen guards sat in the room, eight of them sitting at a table in the middle, a game of cards lying on top of it. Some others sat close to a door to the left and another few at a door on the opposite side of the room. One of these doors had to be the armory, Scott reasoned.

The guards inside the room looked surprised and startled. They haven’t expected one of their own turning against them. Some of them already tried to stand up and unsheathe their weapons.

Scott ran to the first one he could reach, lifting his hand and embedding his knife into the man’s neck. From the corner of his eyes he could see Boyd and Jackson doing the same while his father parried the swing of a sword. Their soldiers without weapons tried to overwhelm other guards and reaching for theirs, but Scott could already see two of them gutted on the ground.

Turning away from the gruesome scene Scott made his way to the left. Isaac has already moved on, fighting one of the two guys sitting beside the door. Swiftly Scott parried the sword coming towards Isaac from the other guard, the clash of his tiny knife with the broadsword shaking him to the core.

He was able to catch himself, though, and regained his footing while the guard was striking out for the next swing. Scott sidestepped, evading the blade. Quickly he raised his knife again to counter the sword coming towards him. The guard has changed the direction of his swing mid-air when he saw that Scott was avoiding the sharp edge.

Scott was pushed back from the force of it. He ducked his head when the sword was aiming for his head next. Seeing an opening Scott went for the open space at the guard’s armpit. The knife was gliding through the leather and flesh like butter.

The guard let out a surprised gasp before he flailed with his arm, hitting Scott with his loose hand, the sword already forgotten on the ground. Scott stumbled against the wall, his back hitting the bricks. His knife was still stuck in his opponent’s armpit, so he was weaponless, but all of the other guards were still engaged in battle. To his left Isaac was able to land numerous hits against his enemy, but the armor was too thick to cause any real damage.

With haste Scott leaped towards his own dead foe and pulled his knife free, the handle slippery with blood. Careful to not draw attention he circled Isaac and his opponent. Isaac spotted him and nodded once before he purposefully took steps to the side to lure the guard’s back towards Scott.

When Scott was sure he was in the guard’s blind spot he leaped forward and drove his blade into flesh once more.

The blood spurted from the man’s neck in waves when he pulled it out again. The guard dropped his sword and fell motionless to the ground into a pulled of blood that was not entirely his own.

When Scott and Isaac turned around towards the other skirmishes they saw that they were almost entirely over. Here and there were still some struggles, but most guards were overwhelmed and dead, and in between some familiar faces of a northern soldier looked coldly up to the ceiling.

Scott bit his lip and turned his head away, avoiding the sight. With Ragna’s keys still on his body he pulled them out and tried them on the armory.

“Speed up! Someone could’ve heard us!” Peter bellowed from where he was thrusting his stolen blade into one of the guards on the ground whose body tensed before he went limp once and for all.

Isaac took the keys from Scott’s hand and picked one out. After he put it in the hole and turned his wrist the door opened with a click. Quickly they opened it and went inside.

Dozens of swords hang in attachments in the middle of the room, lances standing in shelves lined the wall and bundles of arrows lay in one corner with the appending bows and quivers lying beside them.

Without much ado Scott and Isaac went to the swords and grabbed some of them out of their joists. They handed them to the draftees coming in after them. All of them were injured – cuts, lacerations, and one had a broken arm – and they were less than Scott would have liked. Maybe a handful have survived this fight.

Shoving these thoughts into the back of his head he concentrated on the matter at hand. He saw Boyd coming in, his dark skin covered in blood, grabbing one of the lances, a already hanging on his hip, probably from one of the corpses lying in the common room. He swung his new weapon around a few times and nodded, satisfied with the weight and feeling of it.

After everyone was equipped Scott pulled out a sword for himself, but someone snatched it out of his hand, and when he turned around Cora was smirking at him. She had a cut on her forehead, but otherwise she looked fine. Pouting playfully Scott grabbed another sword and shoved past his step-cousin.

Outside Jackson was searching the dead guard’s bodies. He put the knives he pulled out of their armor into various places on his body, his boots, belt and sleeves. When he was done he wiped his hands off on a coat hanging on the wall.

“All right, let’s go!” Peter shouted and shoved Isaac in front of him towards the exit. Behind the last door let a flight of stairs upwards, and with light steps to make as little noise as possible they hurried up towards the ground level.

Isaac led them with sure but cautious steps. They stopped every now and then while he looked around the corners to make sure their way was clear. Every time someone was crossing their path he raised his fingers, signing them the numbers. Jackson would take them out then, swiftly and without noise, no matter if guard or servant. He would cover their mouths from behind and end their lives quickly with one of his knives. They then hid their bodies as good as they could, behind statues and pillars or under tables, but they had no illusions that they wouldn’t be found eventually.

Thankfully only few people were out in the hallways. Scott suspected that it was already past nightfall or early morning and many were still sleeping in their beds. He has lost all feeling of time down there in the dungeons.

Everything seemed to go well when all of them haltered in their steps when a shrill cry tore through the air.

Scott’s heart started racing in his chest and Peter and Jackson cursed loudly before they started to run, shoving Isaac ahead of them.

They have been discovered.

They raced down the great hallways, not caring anymore if somebody saw them or not. Some scared servants jumped out of their way, screaming for the guards when their shock faded.

 Out of other hallways and corridors soldiers came running towards them, their swords already drawn. Jackson threw some of his knives at them, their blades vanishing in their faces and the small gaps in their armor, but others would take their places quickly. Other times, Peter or Boyd would have to fend them off in close combat, and three of the draftees in their group found their death through them, but they never stopped in their tracks.

Soon they reached a court. The flagging was covered in hay and sullied with horse dung. To their right stood wooden stables, the neighing of horsed echoing off the walls. The sky was bleary and peach colored, the sun not even up in the sky yet.

They already ran towards the stables when a small delegation came in through a gate on the opposite side of the court. The group was led by a woman with dark hair, the same young woman Scott has already seen with Kate when they were brought to Gévaudan. Seven men followed her, and all of them were clad in light clothes, a stag swung over the back of one of their horse.

When the hunting group noticed the escapees they quickly dismounted and rushed up to them. The woman was pulling a bow from her back and an arrow from her quiver.

While Scott swung his sword against the incoming soldiers she notched the arrow and shot it at one of their foot soldiers. When Scott impaled his opponent with his sword the man fell dead to the ground, an arrow dead center in his chest.

Due to the light armor the hunters were easy opponents, and after a few moments they lay defeated on the ground. When Scott raised his head another arrow whizzed past his ear. He whipped his head around and saw it impaling the last draftee.

Peter was already charging towards the abandoned horses, right towards the archer. Before she could shoot another arrow he pulled her off her horse. She struggled and placed some well placed kicks and punches at Peter, but he was stronger and got her off balance, and he subdued her after just a short struggle.

He put a knife at her throat when a group of soldiers came out into the yard. They stopped dead in their tracks when they saw the archer in Peter’s grasp. Fearfully (and angry) they observed his actions and ogled the knife at her throat.

Peter grinned all of a sudden and pulled the archer with him towards the horses. Scott and the others didn’t bother thinking about this odd behavior and quickly mounted the others as long as their foe was distracted.

Peter grabbed the archer by her waist and shoved her over the back of her horse before jumping up behind her. With a harsh gallop he hurried out of the gate the hunting group has entered moments before and which still stood open.

Arrows flew past them while they hurried down the street through the city; the only people already up bakers and the scavenging men. None of the missiles hit their mark, though, and Scott couldn’t hear hooves following them.

They rode at a neck breaking speed, always towards the city wall and the fields and forests beyond, their eyes sat on the freedom right in their grasp.

When the city guards at the main gate saw them dashing towards them they quickly tried to close it although the farmers living outside the walls already came into the city to sell their goods at the market.

Those farmers tried to get out of the way of the galloping horses, and if someone wasn’t able to get away in time they tried to ride around them, though Isaac staggered when he hit one of the carts in his path.

They made it through the gate, and the angry voices of the guards followed after them. The archer on Peter’s horse didn’t try to fight against his grip, too focused on keeping herself up on the dashing animal.

Soon they left the fields and entered the forest. They left the road, vanishing in the trees. They had to slow down because the horses had to fight their way through the thick underbush.

The closer the bushes and trees grew the harder it got, and eventually Peter stopped and dismounted. His captive has already pushed herself off the horseback even sooner than his feet hit the ground.

She tried to run away, but Boyd caught her before she could go too far. She struggled and tried to get free, and Jackson had a hard time grabbing onto her arms.

“We abandon the horses. They are too slow and their trail is too distinctive,” Peter ordered, giving the horses a good clasp on their backside to lead them into another direction.

“What should we do with her?” Boyd asked, still holding their struggling captive tight.

“We could knock her out and throw her into a pond. She wouldn’t even feel herself drowing,” Jackson suggested.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Isaac chimed in, sending awkward glances at the archer.

“Why?” Cora asked, but instead of Isaac Peter answered her.

“You’re an Argent, aren’t you?” Peter asked their hostage. She, though, kept her mouth shut stubbornly, glaring at everyone around her.

“Her name is Allison Argent. She is Chris Argent’s daughter,” Isaac explained eventually. When Allison shot him a venomous glare he quickly lowered his head and looked away.

Everyone raised their eyebrows in surprise. Peter, though, regarded their captive thoughtfully. “I think we will take her with us.”


	10. Juniper and Earth

_10 days after the battle_

Derek closed his eyes and sighed. It felt good to feel the warm sun on his skin again. If he had to lie down one more day inside that house he was sure he would get cabin fever.

Thankfully Jennifer has permitted him to move again the other day. His whole body felt sore and odd from his wounds and the days of just lying around in bed doing nothing. He has totally lost the familiarity he had with his body, the fruits of years of training and exercise. The muscles he has gained over the years have shrunken during his recovery and even walking into the garden in the back of the house has exhausted him, but he suspected that his nurse wouldn’t be very thrilled if he started training again just yet to get this familiarity back.

Derek opened his eyes again, his gaze wandering around the garden. He watched Jennifer kneeling in the dirt, her fingers picking out weed and pinching off straws of rosemary and thyme. Her brows were furrowed in concentration, a little cease forming between them while she bit her bottom lip.

She was an enigma to him.

Although people hated her for it and cast her out she still continued to practice her druid ways. Why? Why didn’t she just adapt and live in peace and quiet with the others? She could have had an easy and comfortable life, but instead she chose the life of an outcast. Was she so committed to her calling?

 And on top of that she even took him in, although that meant she would bring herself into great danger. His mere presence in her proximity was a threat to her life. Nevertheless she nursed and treated him without any reward except his gratitude. Maybe she saved him because she hoped he could help her getting back into the North? Maybe she did it because he was royalty? Or maybe she just did it out of duty and compassion.

He saw that she had a though life. He noticed it whenever she had to leave and go into the forest to check the traps she has set up in the forest to catch wild animals so she could have something to eat except what she grew herself. Or in the way the people who came by treated her, how they insulted, exploited and degraded her. He saw it in the way she kept going her own way although all kinds of people were throwing stones into her path.

 Derek wanted to help her, ease some burdens from her shoulders, but he just didn’t know how. He didn’t even know if she would let him if he tried.

  xXx

Slowly but surely Jennifer saw that Derek was regaining his strength. He was moving and walking around, and he settled on sitting on her bench behind her house and watching her tending to her garden after she agreed to it. She felt his gaze on her time and time again, and she felt self-conscious under his gaze.

Last but not least because she was dirty and sweaty. And he was entirely shirtless.

Of course Jennifer has seen his body when she had taken care of his injuries, but back then she had concentrated on her work and keeping her patient alive. It was easy to ignore any physical attraction in the face of death, but now she had to restrain herself from ogling him.

Jennifer was not blind. She very well knew how well build he was from years of training and fighting. Derek was a handsome man, with his strong jaw, sharp nose and striking eyes, but what intrigued her the most about him were not his looks. It was his devotion.  His devotion to his country, his people and his family. She saw every day how much he tried to come back onto his feet again so he wouldn’t have to uselessly sit around anymore while everything he has fought for to protect was in danger.

His determination was inspiring, and Jennifer’s heart ached again with homesickness whenever she saw it in his eyes. Derek brought the sturdy and straight forward customs of the North right back in front of her eyes, some things she has already forgotten over the years. It showed her how little she belonged here in this foreign country.

Her morals, her believes and views, everything she grew up with was different. She was an intruder in this society, and even the sun here felt different on her skin. Derek was the only familiar thing she had in her life, something she hadn’t known she was missing. He was the only thing connecting her to her homeland, and Jennifer was afraid to lose him, although she knew it was inevitable. He made her realize how terribly lonely she felt all those years.

With a sigh Jennifer rubbed the dirt from her hands and stood up from her kneeling position. She bent down and picked up the basket, full of the herbs and spices that have been ready to harvest. She cast Derek a last glance and saw him relishing in the warm afternoon sun. Leaving him there she rounded the house and went inside to hang up the plants at the ceiling over her fireplace to dry.

Carefully Jennifer bound the plants with thread into batches and stepped on one of her chairs to bind them on the beams carrying the ceiling.

She startled and nearly fell of her chair, when she heard a knocking on her door. Adrian Harris stood in the frame, a small smile on his lips that send a chill down her spine whenever she saw it.

Carefully Jennifer stepped back to the ground. She wiped her hands off at her apron around her waist, eyeing Harris cautiously. He has never come to her house before, and she was wary of what he wanted from her. “Can I help you?”

“I hope so,” Harris answered and strode into the room. His gaze was wandering through the interior, lingering on her unmade bed a second longer than on anything else. “You know, my father has a problem with his virility.”

Jennifer snorted. “That happens more often than one would think.”

“You would have to know.” Harris commented. He stood in front of her, his eyes roaming over her body, a strange gleam in them.

Jennifer shivered under his glance before she registered what he had said. “What do you mean with that?” she asked with narrowed eyes.

“Oh, don’t feign stupidity,” Harris sneered. “Everybody in the village knows what a little whore you are. You sleep with everyone as long as they pay you the right price. How else do you gain your money? Surely not with this charlatanism you brought down from your homeland.”

Jennifer’s mouth fell open in shock. Hot red anger bubbled up inside her. Her blood boiled at the assumption that she was some kind of prostitute, selling her body to anyone who came along. She gritted her teeth in enragement and glared at Harris. How _dare_ he think her a common whore! How _dare_ he say it into her face!

“I suggest you leave. Now!” Jennifer grit out between her clenched teeth, barely able to contain herself while she pointed towards the door.

“And there I thought every paying customer is welcome in your house,” Harris leered. He took another step forward, closing the gap between them. He reached out and tried to grab at her, but Jennifer took a step back while she pushed his hand away from. She reached out with her left hand and tried to slap him, but Harris caught her wrist before she could hit him.

Harris pulled her towards him, pressing her body flush against his own, but Jennifer struggled against his grip. She tried to free her wrist and push against his chest to get him off of her, but he was much stronger than her, and his fingers dug painfully into her arm.

He twisted her wrist further to the left, and Jennifer gasped in pain, bending her body into the same direction to accommodate the turn so her bones wouldn’t brake. The pain was piercing, and it cut sharply through her anger and fear. Further and further Harris twisted her wrist until Jennifer couldn’t stand it anymore and screamed out in agony.  Before it would snap, though, she leaned down and bit his arm.

Harris cursed and tried to shrug her off, but Jennifer didn’t let go, biting down until his blood flooded her mouth. Reaching out he brought down his fist against her face. A sharp pain exploded in her cheek, and with a groan she let go of him, the pain blinding her vision momentarily and stealing her strength.

Jennifer fell to the floor, but braced herself against the impact. A piercing pain shot from her left wrist through her whole arm when her hands connected with the floor. With a painful outcry her arm gave out underneath her.

Harris was on her again in seconds. He kneeled over her body, his hands gripping the collar of her dress and pulling at it until the fabric tore and the seams ripped.

She wanted to push him away, punch, kick and scratch him, hurt him, but he caught both of her wrists this time when she tried to fight him. Her heart was in her throat, and her stomach was churning with the fear and adrenaline, tears threatening to spill out of her eyes. It frustrated and scared her how helpless she felt, how little she could do against his assault.

“Differently than my father _I_ have no problems with my virility,” Harris chuckled before he hit Jennifer again with his fist, splitting her lip. He subdued her arms by kneeling on her hands before he reached down and began to fumble with his belt.

Jennifer ached and struggled. An involuntary sob left her lips when she couldn’t do more than wiggle in Harris’ grasp. Hot tears fell down her face, mixing with the blood on her cheek where it split open from Harris’ first punch. But the pain of it blended in with the terror she felt and that threatened to numb her movements.

Grinning Harris pulled out his half hard cock from his trousers and leaned down again, his hands pulling her ripped gown apart and starting to grope at her breast, pinching her nipples hard and painfully. Jennifer screamed in pain and tried to ache away from his touch, whimpering when his hands squeezed hard and unyielding, and his nails dug into her skin until they drew blood. She could hear his lecherous grunts above her.

But all of a sudden the weight on top of her was gone. With a gasp Jennifer pulled her arms in front of her body, trying to cover and protect herself. Her eyes shot up, wondering what has happened.

Harris was gasping for air, his hands trying to ease the grip on his throat. Derek’s face was turned into an ugly snarl, grunting in pain when Harris kicked him in the stomach. But Derek didn’t ease his grip – if possible he tightened it even further – and pulled him towards the open door.

With a growl he threw Harris on the pathway outside, punching him square in the face and kicking him when he was lying in the dirt. “You better not come back here, otherwise I’m going to cut this thing off,” Derek growled, pressing his foot into Harris’ still exposed crotch.

Harris wailed and nodded frantically, his nose broken and bloody, but still Derek didn’t desist. “I couldn’t hear you!” he snarled.

“I’ll never come back,” Harris squeaked and sighed in relief when Derek removed his foot, curling in on himself.

“Good. Now piss off!” Nodding hastily Harris tried to stand back up, but failed when Derek kicked him back into the dirt. Half walking, half crawling Harris made his way down the path back to the village.

Limping a little and completely out of breath Derek returned back inside. Jennifer still sat on the ground, staring out of the door, her gaze fixed on Harris frame leaving in the distance.

Her quivering fingers still clenched around the remains of her shredded dress, trying to pull them across her breasts. Derek struggled when he kneeled down beside her. He gently touched her shoulder, but she immediately shied away from him. She whipped her head towards him, her breath hitching in her throat in momentary fright before she recognized him.

Again Derek tried to touch her. He was hesitant, but when she didn’t shrink back yet again he closed the gap between them. Carefully he pulled her towards his chest and loosely wrapped his arms around her shoulders, giving her the opportunity to push him away.

Jennifer’s first instinct was to fight and flee his grasp, but then she felt the warmth of his skin and breathed in his scent – juniper and earth –, and paused. It was grounding her, distanced herself away from what just happened.  It was warmth and familiarity, home and safety, and she buried her face in the crook of his neck to keep it that way, to lock the world out.

She couldn’t stop herself from shaking. Her wrist hurt whenever she moved it, blood was tickling from the cut on her cheek and her split lip, and her breasts ached from the violation. Tears were falling down her face in steady streams and her sobs wrecked her whole body.

Jennifer leaned further into Derek’s arms, and he tightened them around her, pulling her deeper into his secure embrace while he rubbed soothingly over her back. “It’s all right, you’re safe,” he murmured into her hair. “I’ve got you. You’re safe.” One hand came up and lay at the back of her head, the other drew circles on her shoulder with his thumb.

Jennifer nodded, somehow knowing that Derek would protect her - already did so -, but she still couldn’t stop herself from crying. Gently he rocked them from side to side, whispering soothing nothings she didn’t fully understand against her ear. His voice was smooth, nothing more than a breath. It was sweet like honey and full of honesty and promises.

After hours – or were it mere minutes? – her tears ran dry and her hands stopped shaking like a leaf. Jennifer pulled away reluctantly. Derek’s arms around her eased a little, but didn’t let go of her completely.

She gasped when she noticed the red stains on the bandage around his stomach when she looked down. The wound must have reopened during his struggle with Harris. “You’re bleeding,” she informed him, her voice hoarse from crying.

“I’m fine,” Derek said, but Jennifer could see how pale he was and how his brows furrowed in pain. Little drops of sweat coated his forehead.

“No, you’re not,” Jennifer said and pulled away completely. She gathered her rags to cover herself and stood up. “Just… Just let me get dressed and I will take care of it.”

“Really, you don’t have to,” Derek tried to argue, but Jennifer could see how hard it was for him to even stand up on his own when he tried to follow her.

“Yes, I have to!” Jennifer shouted. She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. She had to regain some bit of control. She _had_ to.

Derek observed her, his eyes warily taking in her appearance, the cuts on her face, her torn dress, her steely but pleading eyes. Eventually he nodded, and Jennifer heaved a sigh of relief.

Nodding she walked towards her chest of drawers and pulled another dress out of it. She turned her head and looked at Derek, but he has turned around, sitting on the chair at the table, his eyes furrowed on the opposite wall.

Quickly she pulled her ripped gown off her body and the new one over her head. She needed longer than she usually did to button it up, her hands not completely obeying her orders yet. They felt weak and clumsy. When she was done she wiped the leftover tears off her cheek, mindful of her cut, and turned around, taking deep breaths to calm down and steady her fingers.

Falling back into her used routine she concentrated on tending to Derek’s injury. The movements were familiar, grounding her to her task and lessening the quivering that was left. Like she thought the stitched were torn and the wound reopened. She redid them quickly after she washed it out again and bandaged it. Derek didn’t make a sound while she worked, just observed her carefully.

When Jennifer was done and wanted to turn around to clean the rag and bowl with the bloody water he gently took her hand. She froze, but his grip was gentle. If she wanted she could slip out of it any moment she wished to. Looking at him she didn’t move, waiting for Derek to do something.

He stood up, leaning on the table for support, before he took the rag from the bowl. He wringed it out to get rid of the excessive water and raise it towards Jennifer’s face. Softly he wiped the blood from her cheek and lip, careful not to press too hard on her wounds. After he was done he looked at her face intently. His eyes clouded in anger while his gaze settled on the cuts on her face.

Jennifer reached up and took his hand still hovering in front of her face into both of hers, drawing his eyes towards her. “Thank you. For saving me,” she said. She really didn’t want to imagine what Harris would have done to her if Derek hadn’t come to her aid.

Derek looked grim, but he still gave her a small smile, his eyes softening when they met hers. “Any time.”


	11. Busted

_11 days after the battle_

For Jennifer there was nothing more annoying (and worrying) then a reopened would. All the effort and strength she and the patient had put into the healing process were frustrated, and the recovery delayed, never mind the danger for the patient.

At least, they were before her best friend tried to kill her in cold rage and jealousy and a sadistic psycho who thought he could do with her body as he wanted because he thought she was a whore. Even if she were no money in the world could have bribed her into fucking Adrian Harris.

Derek hasn’t been on the peak of his strength when he saved her the other day, and the fight with Harris has exhausted him greatly. He didn’t even say something against the bed rest she has bestowed on him afterwards, although she saw how much it displeased him to be bed bound once again.

But no matter how tired he was, his eyes stayed wary and alert whenever he was awake, his gaze following her through the room, as if he expected her to break any minute, as if she was juggling with delicate china that threatened to fall every given second.

 And Jennifer felt as fragile as Derek thought her to be. She tried to distract herself with work – with tending to her garden, with repairs to her chicken house, with mixing salves, cleaning her hut – but there was just so much she could do before all her chores were completed and her mind inevitably wandered back to the events of the previous day.

She could still feel Harris weight on top of her and how his hands groped her, his nails biting into her skin. Her cheek and lip still ached, a dull pulsing that was always in the back of her thoughts. Purple fingerprints covered her breasts where his hands have grasped them, and the wounds where his nails have drawn blood were incrusted.

For the second time since she left her home – the first time since Kali nearly killed her on that forest track – Jennifer felt vulnerable. The little world she has build for herself, her save heaven where she thought no one could ever touch her, has been ripped away from her in just a few tender minutes.

She’s been such a fool.

Jennifer’s hands stilled where she has pulled water from her well when she heard the faint sound of hooves coming closer. If she hadn’t needed fresh water to clean Derek’s wounds anew she wouldn’t have heard it at all.

At first she feared that they were bandits, coming to rob, rape and kill them, but then she saw the plates of their armor gleaming in the midday sun.

Those weren’t bandits, they were soldiers.

Her heart stopped beating for a second, but when it started again it was pumping twice as fast. She let the bucket fall to the ground and rushed towards the house. She pushed the door open in her haste so that it swung shut behind her again after impacting with the wall, and ran towards the bed.

Derek had sat up in bed as soon as she came in, startled from her sudden rush and obvious panic. “What’s wrong?” he asked he worriedly while she threw his blanket away from his legs.

“Soldiers! They’re coming here!” Jennifer answered shortly and pulled at his arm to get him standing.

Derek groaned when he  followed her pull and stood up, the stitched painfully pulling on his newly opened would, but they had not time to be gentle. Jennifer tried to steady him with one of his arms over her shoulder while she dragged him towards the door.

The soldiers may search her house like they did every once in a while, either just for fun to ire her or because the village people proclaimed their worry about her ‘wicked actions’. Her and Derek’s only chance to get away with their heads still attached to their necks was to hide him. She would have to get him into the forest in case the soldiers dug over her garden again like the time before the last. She also couldn’t just hide him behind her hen house. They’ve destroyed that, too, supposedly to search for beasts intended to maim the whole town.

Before they could reach the door, though, the wood burst open as the soldiers who’ve been on their horses less than a minute ago spilled into the house. They haven’t even bothered to use the handle.

Without losing a beat Derek shoved Jennifer behind him to protect her, but he hadn’t had the slightest chance against three armed warriors in his weakened state.

Three soldiers pulled him away from her in seconds and tried to force him to his knees. Derek struggled against their grip, but after a well placed punch to his bandages he doubled over in pain while they tightened their hold on him.

A fourth and fifth one grabbed Jennifer by her arms, their armored fingers digging into her flesh. She tried to swallow the panic swelling up inside of her and shove the sudden memory of Harris holding her down out of her mind. They had greater problems on their hands than that.

After the short but useless struggle another man stepped in. His demeanor was calm and collected, and from the look of his armor he was the Captain of the Guard. His gaze settled on Jennifer first, his eyes wandering over her body. Jennifer wanted to puke at the feeling, cold sweat coating her back.

“We received information that a northern fugitive was kept hidden in this house,” the Captain eventually said, winkling his nose at the last word. His voice was high and nasally, as if he tried (and failed) to pass off as someone born into aristocracy. His eyes settled next on Derek, and with exaggerated slow step to show his power over the situation he walked towards where he was held down.

The Captain narrowed his eyes and leaned in, scrunching his nose when he examined the tattoo on Derek’s left shoulder. His eyes widened in recognition. “Not only a fugitive, a _Hale_ ,” he whispered and raised his head to stare at Derek who glared right back at him.

Jennifer wanted to fight and scream in frustration. In her head she cursed Harris. She had never wished death to anyone in her life, but now she wished that Derek had killed him instead of letting him go.  Jennifer just knew that it was him who had told the guards about Derek. Maybe he had seen the tattoo as well, but most likely he had just wanted revenge for the interrupted act and the following humiliation, making up a story and not noticing how close to the truth he came.

The Captain straightened up again after breaking his staring contest with Derek, a hungry glint in his eyes. “We will bring them both in front of his majesty for judgment,” he declared with a smile and turned to leave. “His highness will be _most_ pleased.”

The soldiers tugged sharply on Jennifer’s arm and pulled her out of the door without further notice. From the corner of her eyes she saw how the others dragged Derek to his feet, and she saw how his face contorted in pain at the harsh treatment.

A feeling of hopelessness settled in Jennifer’s guts, and without a last glance back they led her back towards the village.

 

xXx

 

 Allison glared at the northerners while they discussed what they were going to do next.

They have settled down for a rest in a small, moss and stone covered grove. They’ve walked for two days now, and only during the night they allowed themselves to pause for a few hours, and even then at least two of them were guarding her.

Berries and the occasional nut or mushroom was everything they had as supply, the jerky and rusk she and her hunting party have kept in their saddle bag before already used up before she got kidnapped. Her stomach growled to protest at its emptiness.

Allison especially glared at the guard from the castle, Isaac. He always avoided her eyes, not directly looking at her. But when their gaze would occasionally meet by accident she was sure to put an extra portion of venom into it. He was a traitor, forsaking his own country and vows for a group of dirty little fiends he met in a cell. She wondered how much it took them to make him join them in their little escape. Did they offer gold? Property in the North? A title? No matter what it was, Isaac didn’t seem to be the most ambitious.

And worst of all this traitor was carrying her bow and arrows.

They have stripped her off all her weapons and have taken them as their own, but this measly guard didn’t even look as if he knew how to hit a target if it was standing directly in front of him. So what use were they to him?

If she could just over power him and get her bow back into her possession…

“Don’t even think about it,” the only other girl in the group hissed into her ear. Allison turned her head, now glaring at her watchdog. The girl – a Hale, too, speaking from the tattoo on her neck – has dedicated herself to push and pull Allison along since they kidnapped her, together with the dark skinned guy she knew as Boyd, a Captain of the North. At least one of them kept a watchful eye on her at all times to make sure she didn’t try to escape or make a ruckus that may lead others onto their trail.

“Do we really have to take her along?” the girl threw into the discussion, looking expectantly at Peter, brother to Queen Talia.

Allison still knew him from the battle field and his capturing afterwards. Back then, when her aunt Kate has taunted him with the death of his nephew she had felt pity for him, but now she felt only annoyance and disdain, even hatred. How much feelings could turn without chackles.

“She already knows the route we’re taking, she could easily get a group of soldiers from the next town and get them on our track. Or she could get herself a weapon, follow us and kill us in our sleep, or-“

“All right, all right, I get it!” the girl interrupted him, rolling her eyes.

“But in a way she’s right,” the other Captain in the group dropped in. “We can’t take her all the way home with us. Maybe we should just-“

“We’re not going to kill her. Yet,” Peer said in annoyance. The Captain – Jackson Allison remembered from the lesson her aunt has given her before the battle – shut his mouth and crossed his arms over his chest, pouting.

“We could drop her off when we’re sure neither she nor anyone else will catch up with us, even if she runs free,” Boyd suggested.

“And where exactly?” the traitor guard asked, throwing a berry into his mouth and chewing open-mouthed while staring into the round. Allison watched him in hatred and disgust.

“We leave her in the forest before the Border Mountains. Before the pass is a town, a trading port. When we get supplies we get a rope and tie her up. Eventually someone will find her,” the one with the crooked jaw said, his brown eyes honest and sincere, and it surprised Allison. Kate taught her his name was Scott, and that he was Peter’s son, so she has thought that the two would be more alike, more logical like his father. Not making suggestions that almost sounded… human? Merciful?

Peter didn’t seem fond of the idea. The two of them stared at each other for a good long while, fighting for the upper hand in this argument. The others seemed to hold their breathes during the contest of will until eventually Peter sighed and nodded in acceptance.

Allison has actually thought that he was the stern, unyielding and sever type of man and leader. She has seen the burning fury in his eyes when Kate has talked to him, so his mercy towards her was surprising. Maybe he just had a soft spot for his son.

“Why don’t you just kill me _there_?” she asked, the first time she talked since her kidnapping.

Everyone looked at her, and the traitor guard even stopped chewing for a second. It was Scott who answered her in the end. “We’re not cold blooded killers… well, at least not all of us.” He sends a sly look towards Jackson, who seemed completely unfazed by the implication and instead examined his nails.

Allison observed the group of escapees, especially Scott. He seemed to believe in what he said. That death wasn’t always the first option that has had to come to mind.

She could still recall her aunt’s words before the battle. _Don’t give them any mercy. You won’t receive any in return, either_. It was what was taught to her since she was a little child, by Kate, her mother and her grandfather. Only her father has ever shown empathy and compassion, was it towards his own people or his enemies. She never saw him treat them unjust, always with respect. Well, at least with as much respect as they deserved as their enemies, but never as cruel as Kate or Gerard did. For years that has been the norm around her, if she liked it or not. Maybe that has been the reason why he always loved her father more than the rest of her family.

And now here she was, kidnapped and alone, totally at her foes’ mercy. A mercy they were willing to give her.

Scott countered her gaze while she continued looking at him while they others started discussing which route they should continue one. His eyes were so open and light-hearted like Allison has never seen it before. In her country, if someone showed compassion, it was seen as a weakness that anyone could exploit. It was not that her people were cruel or rotten on the inside, unable to love, but more the way they have always been. They just didn’t know how to act any other way. But at the moment Allison was bound to admit that this boy had the strongest and warmest eyes she has ever seen.

When she was finally able to tear her eyes away from his she saw that the traitor Isaac was staring at her and Scott, his head whipping back and forth between them. When he looked at her again she gave him an especially nasty glare that made him flinch back and the berry in his mouth stuck in his throat.

He started to choking and coughing, and Scott hurried to clap him on the back, a concerned frown on his face.

Now Allison could understand why he has betrayed his country. With eyes like that, who could ever stand a chance to resist?


	12. Dire Fates

_14 days after the battle_

 

The unsteady bounce of the carriage was unnerving, and Jennifer’s knees and hips ached more and more with every hour she sat in that cage. It was too low to stand up, but also not long enough to stretch out. But she knew that she had no right to complain about her condition. If she could she would change places with Derek any time.

The soldiers have tied his wrists together with a rope they have fastened on the axis of the carriage, pulling him after them by foot. His face was pale and his whole body was covered in sweat, although Jennifer feared that it wasn’t only because of the rising temperatures but rather of a developing fever, based on the delirious and absent look in Derek’s eyes. Blood was staining his bandages, dirt coloring the fabrics an unhealthy brown.

They’ve been travelling for the last three days, only resting at night. The stain as well as the constant change from nearly freezing cold at night and scorching sun at day wasn’t doing his system any good. The only color of his skin were from the dark bruises all over his body and the angry red from his sunburn, his lips dry and split from dehydration.

“Please, you have to give him something to drink or he will collapse!” Jennifer tried to plead with their captors for what felt like the umpteenth time in the last couple of days. She clasped the bars of her cage and pressed her face against them, as if that was going to help her get out of there or any closer to helping  Derek.

They have put her in it instead of Derek to put her as far away from their reach as possible. Like many in the South the men were highly superstitious, fearing that she would curse or jinx them if she were to touch them. They believed those bars would be able to protect them. Jennifer would have laughed if the situation was any other.

Their guards only laughed, shoving at Derek’s back for good measure to ire her. It went on like that since they were caught. The occasional hit when he wasn’t quick enough. A kick as a wakeup call. Nothing drastic, but all those assaults and abuses were mostly placed at his wounds, adding up until Derek’s stitches broke again. Only this time Jennifer had no chance of treating them.

The shove made Derek stumble, his stricken balance and concentration doing the rest to send him falling into the dirt of the street.

But the carriage didn’t stop. The wheels carried on, and the rope binding Derek to the cart stretched and started pulling him after them. He groaned when the haul dragged at his joints in this awkward angle and pulled him over stones and ridges.

“Onto your feet!” one of the guards yelled, coming up from further up their grouü when they finally stopped after another couple of meters. He struck out with his foot to connect it with Derek’s stomach when he didn’t pull himself to his knees fast enough. With a cough he bent in on himself, his whole body taut and rigid with anguish.

“Derek you have to stand up! Derek! Stand up!” Jennifer pleaded, clutching the bars of her prison even tighter. She saw the other men joining in on the spectacle, and the smiles she saw on their faces made her stomach churn. There was nothing humorous in them, just sinister glee.

Again Derek tried to pull himself up to his feet, but he was too weak. His strength left him halfway up, his knees giving out from underneath him. He fell back to the ground, and the Captain who came up next to him snarled in disgust.

He bent down and raised Derek’s head up by his hair. He observed his face, his eyes taking in the pale skin, dry lips and glassy eyes, narrowed in pain. His own eyes narrowed at what he saw before he shoved Derek’s face back into the dirt.

He straightened again before he motioned his men over with a wave of his hand. The smiles they wore widened even further, and Jennifer’s blood turned to ice.

Within seconds two of them were over Derek, attacking his crouching form from two sides. “Stop that! You’re going to kill him!” Jennifer screamed in desperation, pulling at her cage with all of her strength in an irrational hope they would give in, that she would be able to jump out and somehow save Derek’s life.

But the men ignored her. If possible they continuing to kick their defenseless victim with even more vigor.

“Stop it! Stop it or I’m going to curse all your souls to suffer in the eternal flame of the underworld for the rest of time!” Jennifer threatened, drawing the last straws she had, swallowing the fear that her empty words would have no effect. She felt sick to her stomach at the thought.

Surprisingly the guards let up from Derek, taking a few steps back. They stared at her with wide, frightened eyes, and Jennifer thought she could finally gain some kind of control over the situation, especially when she noticed the same look on the other men’s faces.

But her hopes were quickly tarnished when the Captain started to laugh, cold and humorless.

“Are you two fools really that stupid to think she could actually do that?!” he yelled at his subordinates, slapping one of them over the head. “Magic or witchcraft doesn’t exist, you idiots! She’s just a normal whore trying to mess with your heads.” He walked over to where Derek was still lying bent in on himself, unmoving. His body tensed when the Captain put another kick to his stomach, a weak choking sound leaving his chapped lips.

“May the Warrior scourge your soul until the end of this world!” Jennifer shouted, fixating her eyes on the man’s frame and starting to mumble words of the Old Tongue her mentor has taught her.

In reality her words meant nothing but gibberish, making no sense at all, but the guards didn’t know that, and she hoped that this little demonstration would keep these men at bay. She put every bit of  hot fury into her glare she had in her while she spoke the old verses. She let her voice drop an octave to make it sound as threatening as possible.

But although most of the soldiers backed away, afraid to be hit by her curse, the Captain only grit his teeth in anger and pulled a keychain from his belt, opening the lock on Jennifer’s cage.

She backed away from the open door, her enchantment entirely forgotten. She screamed in surprise and panic when the Captain grabbed her ankle and dragged her from the carriage. Jennifer tried to kick and struggle, but every hit she landed was absorbed by the metal of his armor. Her fingers were wedged from the bars she tried to hold on to when the Captain gave a sharp tug.

She cried out again when she was thrown to the ground right beside Derek. She saw him reach out to her from the corner of her eyes before someone pulled at her shoulder and turner her on her back. Again she tried to fight, but the Captain subdued her movements by pinning her arms by her sides with his own hands while he knelt above her.

It was like a déjà vú, and again Jennifer arched and wiggled to get free. She screaming in frustration and helplessness, but if she hasn’t been able to get free of Harris’ grip the other day then she had even less chance of freeing herself from a trained fighter covered in heavy armor, and she knew that, even if she were able to throw the man off, there were half a dozen others who would take his place.

The two guards from before pulled Derek from the ground by lifting him up by his armpits. Like herself he struggled against the grip, but he was too weak and exhausted to really do anything than flail helplessly. His movements were sluggish and uncoordinated. A muffled “no” escaped his split lips, his eyes trained on her face.

“Hold her arms,” the Captain commanded, looking at one of his other men. That man, though, looked thoroughly frightened, his eyes constantly whipping from his superior down towards Jennifer’s face and back again.

The Captain rolled his eyes. “She isn’t going to jinx you, you moron. Now come and hold her arms.”

When the guard eventually kneeled at her head and the Captain released her arms she tried to push him off of her, grabbing at the dagger at his belt but missing it in her struggle. He caught her wrists again and handed them over to his underling.

Jennifer sobbed, the sickening fear and desperation fighting their way towards the surface. She arched her back and tried to raise her hips to get him off, but it only seemed to amuse him even further. Suddenly he slapped her in the face, the edge of the his gauntlet cutting into her skin and blood tickling over her skin.

Hot tears of fear and pain filled her eyes, but she held them back. She didn’t want them to also get the satisfaction of taking her pride when they were already taking her body.

The Captain grabbed her chin and shoved her face to the side. She could smell his foul breath on her cheek before his wet tongue met her skin. She squeezed her eyes shut when it began to travel over her jaw up towards her mouth.

Chills of disgust shook her whole body and gathered in her stomach, tightening into nausea. She wanted to throw up, especially when his tongue slipped between her lips. Before she could bite it off though he was already pulling away. He tasted as disgusting as he smelled. "You're nothing but a filthy little bitch, and I will be the one to show you your place," she heard him mutter into her ear.

When she opened her eyes again she saw straight into Derek’s face. His glare was filled with fury and hatred, and the intensity of his gaze almost looked strong enough to rip the man on top of her apart. Oh, how she wished it would work.

Then her eyes caught something behind Derek. Through the blurry of her mounting tears she couldn’t determine what it was in detail, but when she heard a whirring, followed by a gurgling above her, she prayed that whoever has launched that arrow was on their side.


	13. Choices

It was far from silent how they stormed through the underbush. But what could Allison expect from seven people on the run? She was actually glad they made so much noise and left a trace big enough that a blind man could be able to follow them. Maybe this way her people would be able to rescue her out of this predicament.

Allison observed the northerners, took in where they kept their weapons or if any of them was growing unfocused. Scott was looking after her at the moment. Although he, too, made sure she didn’t try to escape he was still the one who was the most lax about it. She would call him out for his stupidity if it wouldn’t redounds to her advantage. With him on the watch she had the biggest chance of escape.

She observed how Isaac tripped over a root (that clumsy traitor), and how Boyd grabbed his shoulder to prevent him from falling. It was strange for her to see soldiers acting like that. She has seen many officers who were comrades, who drank and played cards with each other before a battle, but if it came down to a life threatening situation, if it came down to either live or let live, those men who were friends the night before would abandon each other. She didn't know it any other way, and yet she was witnessing something entirely different.

She has seen it on the battlefield just a few weeks ago. Back then she has already seen the difference between their countries, between their people. While hers ran and left their comrades for dead the northerners slung their men over their shoulders to save them as well, even if it cost them their own life.

If it were her people they would have let Isaac fall, would have let him learn from his mistake. That was just the way they were. You wouldn’t accomplish anything in life if you got spoilt or cushioned from the world outside your door. You learned more from failure than from victory.

Her own education and childhood hasn’t been any different. She clearly remembered how her aunt has taught her how to shoot. Once, at the beginning, she hasn’t checked the bowstring, and when she has pulled it back, ready to launch her arrow, it has snapped. The cut she got from it on her cheek has lasted weeks, but she has learned her lesson. She has checked all her bowstring ever since.

But maybe Isaac has also learned his lesson. Maybe his comrades have let him fall one too many times. Maybe the lesson he has leaned was not only how to pick himself back up again and to pay attention but to also not trust the ones who let him fall.

All her life people have treated her with respect and reverence. She would be their queen one day, so they tried to get into her good graces. She has never been on the receiving end of another ones hatred or harassment. She didn’t know how it felt when other people let her fall instead of helping her to remain upright. She wondered how it felt.

Alone the imagination made her feel miserable.

Allison was ripped out of her thoughts by a scream sounding in the distance.

The group looked at each other, and with a nod of his head Peter walked into the direction the scream came from. Scott grabbed her by the arm, not hard enough to hurt her, but still firm enough to pull her along.

They were surprisingly silent and efficient, something that let Allison doubt her previous assumption about their clumsiness, and soon they reached an acclivity from which they could overlook a street down below. They took shelter behind a row of bushes. Allison crouched down between Scott and Isaac, their hands on her back to keep her on the ground.

They looked down on a group of soldiers. They stood in front of a carriage, around half a dozen men in light armor identifying them as foot soldiers. But one of them spotted a higher rang, a captain Allison noticed. He was pinning a woman to the ground with his body.

Two others were holding a man upright by the arms. He was shirtless, dirty and obviously wounded, with dirty bandages and sunburned skin. He struggled against their grip, but his actions had little effect on his captors.

Allison could hear the Captain ordering one of his men to hold the woman’s arms. She could hear her sobbing and saw her fighting under the Captain’s grip. From this distance she could still see her eyes, the tears and desperation in them.

Shesaw how the Captain slapped and licked at the woman’s face, saw the disgust and despair on her face. Her blood was boiling in her veins, the hairs on her neck rising in rage and disgust.

Allison watched how the man tried to free himself, saw how he tried to help this woman, but was incapable of doing so. Was he her brother? Her Husband? Has it been the guards who wounded him? Where they criminals or were those two just at the wrong place at the wrong time?

She saw the Captain’s face, his lips pulled up into a smile full of delight at the woman's fear and useless struggle. It send a shiver down her spine, and the thought what he would – _will_ – do to that woman made Allison nauseous. She looked over to the side, observed how Scott and the others would react to what was happening down on the street, and to her surprise none of them was doing anything ot stop it. Why wouldn't they stop it? She has seen them killing southerners before, she has seen them do rekless and suicidal things, she has seen how they carried their comrades off the battlefield with no regard to their own lives, and yet they did nothing to stop this men from defiling this poor woman, did nothing to end thisbarbarity.

Why weren't they _doing_ anything?!

Without even thinking about what she was doing Allison grabbed Isaac and pulled her bow from his shoulder and an arrow from the quiver on his back. She blanked out the curses of the others around her, the only thing she could focus on this white hot fury insde her chest that wanted to be quenched.

Everything she could think about was the atrocities the man would do to that woman down there on the street. Of the way he would hurt and defile her in front of her possible lover. That he probably wouldn’t be the only one, that his men would follow suit. Everything she could see in front of her eyes was this woman’s broken body left behind to rot at the side of the street, her clothes ripped apart and her eyes lifelessly staring into the distance.

Allison didn’t need much time to aim before she shot an arrow straight through the Captain’s throat.

 

xXx

 

Scott was surprised when Allison, a princess of the South, has shot one of her own man.

Just the day before she has glared at Isaac as if she wanted to stab him in the eye for collaborating with them, and now here she stood, a bow in her hand and killing an officer of her own army. He didn’t see any regret in her eyes, no guilt. Only anger and fury.

Now they had no other choice but to intervene. She has taken that choice away from them when she has launched that arrow, for the better or for worse.

Scott has detested himself while he hid in the underbush and had to helplessly watch this men raping that woman, but if he had jumped out and defended her the occurring fight may have lead their persecutors onto their trail, endangering their escape.

Now he was nearly relieved that he could run down there and help, their pursuers be damned. to stop this atrocity.

Cursing under his breath Peter was the first one who drew his sword and jumped out of the bushes, running down the acclivity, closely followed by Boyd and Jackson. Scott and Isaac followed them while Cora roughly grabbed Allison’s arm, pulled the bow from her hand and shoved her down towards the street.

They had the advantage of surprise on their side. The men didn’t stand the slightest chance, still shell shocked and panicked by the sudden death of their leader.

They made short work of the southerners. Man after man fell by their blades, the dry earth eagerly soaking up their blood. One of them even tried to flee, but Boyd put him down with a quick stab of his spear.

Scott controlled the pulse of one of the fallen soldiers, checking if he was really dead, just like he had the others. They didn't want any of them to survive and tell someone about who attacked them. When he straightened again his eyes roamed the impromptu battlefield in search of the woman and the man that were held captive.

He found them near the carriage. The woman was crouching over her companion, shielding him with her body, her form shaking like a leaf. He was lying on the ground, his bound hands the only thing beside his legs that were visible. The woman was looking at them warily, her eyes never leaving the weapons in their hands and observing their movements while she bend over the man’s upper body. Her eyes reminded him of a caged animal.

“Don’t worry,” Scott said. He sheathed his sword and raised his hands, palms out to show he meant no harm. “We don’t want to hurt you.”

The man underneath her stirred. “Scott?” he croaxed, his thitherto tense body relaxing.

Scott frowned and took a step forward. He bent his head to the side, trying to look around the curtain of hair shielding the man. The woman lifted herself for a fraction, confusion shown on her dirty face. Scott’s eyes widened when he recognized the man.

“Derek!” he gasped and launched himself at him. His cousin looked haggard and worn out, a beard covered the former smooth lower half of his face. He was incredibly pale where his skin wasn’t burned from the sun, and sweat was covering his entire skin. His eyes were glassy and feverish. Blood was staining the dirty bandages around his shoulder and stomach, the places where Scott has seen the arrows impaling themselves into his body.

All in all he looked half dead.

But half dead was better than completely dead.

“How… how did you…?” Scott babbled, touching Derek’s uninjured shoulder. He felt like he had to make sure it was really him, in the flesh and not an illusion or cruel dream. The skin was unnaturally hot underneath his palm.

He nearly stumbled to the ground when Cora shoved him out of the way to reach her brother. Derek at first looked at her in confusion before it turned into disapproval, but there was still a certain amount of fondness in them. Boyd stood at his feet, a relieved look on his face.

The woman at Derek’s other side observed them for a second before she pursed her lips and stood up, obviously coming to the conclusion that they knew each other and didn’t pose a threat. She hurried towards the bags lying on the other half of the carriage not occupied with the cage and started rummaging around in them.

Peter stepped forward to occupy the vacated side, lifting his half empty waterskin from his belt and offering it to Derek. Scott helped him sit up while Cora cut the ropes binding his wrists. Peter lifted the skin to Derek’s lips, and he drank greedily. after a few mouthful of water he choked on it and started coughing wildly. He groaned when his muscles convulsed as he tried to get rid of the water in his windpipe, his body shaking with the effort.

 “How did you survive? I saw you hit by those arrows before you fell into the Kanima,” Scott asked, gently clapping Derek’s back. He was afraid Derek would break apart from those small impacts alone, so fragile did he look. Scott has never seen him so vulnerable and weak ever before in his life. It was almost otherworldy, and it frightened him.

Derek still coughed, but with a hand he pointed at the woman still going through the bags. “Druid,” he muttered when he was able to breathe again. “Jennifer saved me. But we were discovered. They wanted to bring us to the capital.”

The sinking feeling of guilt that has eased up since he saw Derek alive and breathing began settled back in Scott’s stomach. At the thought of what would have happened if Allison hadn’t launched that arrow a cold fist clenched around his heart. He and the others would have gone on, leaving Derek for dead in the capital, although he looked as if he wouldn’t even have made it that far to begin with.

He didn’t seem to be the only one. Cora has grown a little pale, and Boyd and Peter looked at each other uncomfortably. Scott cast a glance towards where Isaac stood with Allison to keep an eye on her.

She looked at the man she shot through the throat. Her expression was unreadable, but it turned into a hate filled grimace before she spit on his corpse and turned away. Their eyes met briefly, and Scott gave her a thankful nod.

He saw how the gesture surprised her, but she still nodded back in understanding, accepting his gratitude.

“We have to hide the bodies,” Peter eventually said. Jackson has already begun to search the men for anything they could use. Boyd nodded and walked towards his comrade, and together they carried the corpses into the bushed on the side of the road so they wouldn't be discovered at first sight.

In the meanwhile the woman, Jennifer, seemed to have found what she was looking for. She lifted one of the bags off the cargo area and hurried back towards Derek’s side.

“I have to treat his wounds,” she said and began to peel the bandages off his body. But Peter reached forward and grasped her wrist, stopping her in her advances. He didn’t notice how she tensed under his touch.

“We need a place to hide first. Someone could come and find us any minute,” he said and stood up.

Scott mimicked him, and when Peter reached down and grabbed Derek under one of his armpits Scott took the other one, and together they hoisted him up to his feet.

Derek cried out in pain at the motion, and his knees gave out underneath him almost immediately, but Peter and Scott caught him before he could fall to the ground again. They draped his arms over their shoulders and moved towards the acclivity they came from.

Jackson and Boyd were done hiding the bodies and each picked up one of the bags holding supplies, Boyd reaching out to take the one Jennifer carried as well.

Cora shooed Allison up back into the forest, but she was already ahead of her, going on her own volition.

Peter and Scott carried most of Derek’s weight. Scott could hear his cousin’s heavy breathing in his ear, and the skin underneath his hands felt hot and sweaty, although shivers wrecked Derek’s body every other second.

He looked over his shoulder towards Jennifer who followed them close by. Maybe it was luck, maybe fate or just a coincidence, but Scott hoped that a trained druid would be able to save Derek. He wouldn't be able to bear the loss of his cousin a second time.


	14. From Dusk Till Dawn

It was already dark when they found a suitable hideout. So far nobody followed them, but they didn't dare stop before they found a place that was remotely safe.

When the sun was setting they've found a quarry on the other side of a shallow river. It looked abandoned, the wildlife already taking back its territory with small trees and wild blackberry bushes. Some large rocks and boulders have fallen off the cliffside and formed a small shelter from wind and sight.

Scott and Body had to carry Derek through the ford a few hundred feet down the river, otherwise he would have been swept away in his weakened condition. During their two hours of running he has even lost consciousness once, and Peter has carried him over his shoulder, but eventually the strain got too much and they have had to take turns.

Jackson has walked up ahead to clear the area and make sure they really were alone before they have made their way through the boulder towards a secure place that was at least a little overshadowed by a couple of trees to protect them from threatening rain.

Cora and Isaac gathered fire wood for a small camp fire while they settled Derek down on the ground beside the stone. Scott's stomach churned whenever he looked at his cousin. If possible he looked even worse than when they found him, and the woman, Jennifer, wore a permanent scowl while she examined his wounds after she knelt down beside him. It couldn’t mean anything good.

Scott hissed in sympathy when he saw the angry red swellings underneath the bandages. Dried blood and dirt were crusting over the injuries, the thread of the stitches poking out where they have ripped apart. The wounds were watering, and disgusting yellow puss leaked out between where the crust has split open while dark veins stood out underneath the semi-transparent skin. Scott has never seen an infected wound before, but it looked even worse than he has ever imagined it.

"I need clean water, and better lighting," Jennifer told them. She didn't raise her voice, but there was still an authority in her voice he couldn't stop to notice. She was clearly in her element.

Without an answer Boyd stood up and took their waterskins and disappeared towards the river. Meanwhile Cora and Jackson were stroking the fire so it gave a better shine.

In the flickering light of the fire Derek looked even paler than in the daylight, and Scott got a sinking feeling in the pitch of his stomach. Was fate that cruel? Would it give them back a member of their family they thought lost only to take it away from them yet again?

Jennifer's brows were furrowed while she worked, her lips drawn into a thin like. When Boyd came back with the water she started to clean the wounds, trying to free it from the dirt and blood and puss seeping out of them. When Jennifer gently touched the swollen flesh Derek's eyes shot open. He made a sound as if he was choking on his tongue before she squeezed his eyes shut again, every muscle in his body tensing to stop himself from screaming. Scott thought he could hear his jaw and teeth breaking from the effort to keep his mouth shut.

Jennifer pulled away after as soon as she was done, and Derek started to breathe again, the air leaving his lungs in heavy pants. "I need a knife. Hold it over the flames to clean it," Jennifer instructed while she pulled one of the bags she's taken from the carriage earlier towards her.

Jackson pulled one of his many knives from his belt and held it over the fire, close over the ambers. After a minute he pulled it away again. The metal was smoking in the cold air of the evening, the metal glimmering in a light shade of red from the heat. Carefully to not burn himself he offered it to Jennifer.

She took the handle and held it in front of her cautiously. "I need a belt or a piece of wood so Derek doesn't bite off his tongue," she ordered. Taking a branch from the pile of wood Jackson handed it in front of Derek’s face. With bleary eyes he looked at the wood before he opened his mouth so Jackson could place it between his teeth.

"Hold him down," Jennifer said. Swallowing hard Scott knelt down and grabbed one Of Derek's legs while Cora took the other. Boyd knelt down by Derek's shoulders and held them with his large hands, careful of the injury on the right side.

From this new position Scott could see that Jennifer's hands were trembling slightly. She took a deep breath and gripped the handle of the knife a little tighter before she lowered it. With one hand on his stomach to brace herself she began cutting at the inflamed flesh.

Derek's reaction was instantaneous. He arched his back, his muscles tensing. A choked scream emanated past the wood in his mouth. His fingers dug into the earth, searching for purchase while Jennifer cut at his wound.

Scott groaned in the effort to keep his cousin down and as unmoving as possible. Peter had to eventually jump in and help them by pushing at Derek's midsection to keep him on the ground.

While Jennifer cut out the infected and dead tissue of the wound the heat of the knife was cauterizing it at the same time, stopping further bleeding and burning everything that might get the wound infected again while removing the festering flesh.

It couldn't have been more than a few minutes before Jennifer straightened and cleaned the knife before putting it back over the fire to reheat it before she repeated the process on Derek’s shoulder. For Scott it felt like a lifetime, listening to those screams of agony.

When she was done the branch fell from Derek's open mouth, his chest rising and falling rapidly while he drew in breathe after breathe. His muscles relaxed and his eyes closed. Scott thought he has finally lost consciousness again. He hoped he did.

Jennifer rummaged in one of the bags before she found what she was searching for and pulled out a bundle of leaves Scott has never seen before. She took some of them and put them in her mouth, chewing on them thoroughly.

Next she pulled out a roll of bandages. She leaned back over Derek and pulled the leaves from her mouth. They were a grayish and greenish mush now, and without further ado Jennifer rubbed it into Derek's wounds.

He twitched and grunted, but didn't wake again. "Keep him upright so I can wrap him up," Jennifer said. They sat Derek up and held him upright for her to cover the newly treated injuries before they lay him back down again to rest.

Jennifer grabbed one of the waterskins at her side and opened it. She held the opening to Derek's lips while she supported his head to give him something to drink. She stopped when Derek began to choke and settled him back down.

"Is he going to be all right?" Scott couldn't help but ask. He couldn't lose his cousin. Not again.

Jennifer sighed before she looked up and met his gaze. "I don't know yet. It could be that we were too late and the infection already spread before I could contain it. His condition already worried me since we were about to be taken to the capital. All I can do is keep the wound as clean as possible and lower the stain on his body so he can fend off the fever."

"You mean that he needs bed rest," Peter clarified with furrowed brows. He didn't seem overly fond of the idea.

"At least he shouldn't run through the wilderness," Jennifer said, glaring angrily at Peter, challenging him.

Scott looked back and forth between the two in worry. If they wanted to have a chance of surviving and escaping their followers they would have to reach the Border Mountains as soon as possible, but a quick escape would be too much of a stain for Derek to handle. It was either waiting until he was in a condition to walk or leaving him.

"Maybe we should rest first before we decide on what to do next," Boyd stepped in, laying a reassuring hand on Peter's shoulder.

He continued to glare at Jennifer another second before he sighed and gave in. "Boyd, Cora, you've got the first watch, Jackson and I the second."

After Peters words silence fell over the camp while everyone was preparing for their night rest. Jennifer settled close to Derek after she exchanged a few quiet words with Cora.

She sat down between her brother and Allison, probably to have an eye on both of them during the night.

Allison hadn't tried to resist or to flee since she shot the Captain on that road. She hadn't talked either. Scott watched her cautiously, but it didn't seem as if she wanted to escape in the close future either. She looked as if she had too much on her mind at the moment. Her eyes lingered on Derek every once in a while, and every time she turned her head away from the sight. Scott believed he saw a glint of regret and shame in her gaze, but the next moment it was gone, so he brushed it off as a trick of his imagination.

With his own lingering gaze on his cousin Scott turned his face towards the fire and let the flickering flames lull him into sleep.

 

xXx

 

Jackson yawned into his hand while he stared at the horizon. The sun was coming up soon, the sky behind the tree line already taking on the color of a grayish blue. Maybe another hour top and they would have to start walking again. He could already see the outline of the Border Mountains in the distance.

He cast a glance at Peter who sat on a boulder on the opposite side of their makeshift camp. Jackson wondered if he had already made a decision concerning Derek. He couldn't see much, but Jackson didn't believe Derek's condition improved much during the night.

The thought of leaving him behind was uncomfortable, but Jackson would have no qualms abandoning him if they had to. Their enemies were hot on their heels, especially after the stunt the previous day, and they couldn't burden themselves any further. Anyway, he would do how his commander would tell him to, no questions asked.

He pulled his tunic a little closer against his body to fend off the cold of the night. They have let the fire burn down after it wasn't needed anymore so it wouldn’t give away their position to anyone passing by, but the extra caution didn't mean Jackson was happy being miserably cold.

A motion in the distance woke Jackson's attention. He narrowed his eyes to see better in the twilight of the oncoming morning. There was something moving between the stones.

With a low whistle he warned Peter who turned around. Silently Jackson pointed into the direction, and after another movement followed by muffled sounds they bent down towards their companions and woke them up.

They lay a finger on their lips to motion them to be quiet before they sneaking through the labyrinth of stones. If it was an enemy they would take him by surprise. Jackson silently pulled a knife, preparing himself to throw it any given moment to take down whoever was following them as quickly as possible.

He and Peter approached from two different sides, but just as they wanted to jump out of their hideout they heard that muffled sound again, more clearly this time.

Was that a horse neighing? Frowning Jackson lowered his knife and stepped out from behind the boulder.

In front of him stood a straying horse, the black fur gave it the perfect cover in the dark of the night. The saddle on its back was unoccupied.

When Jackson came closer the horse began to shy at them. It neighed nervously and pranced back and forth until its back hit another boulder. Jackson could see brownish, sticky parts on its fur, but the animal didn't seem to be injured. Maybe the blood of its rider?

Jackson raised his arms while he slowly approached the nervous animal. With a low voice he tried to soothe it until he could grab the reigns dangling off its neck. He caressed the horse nostril and lowly talked  to it to calm it down further.

"That's Darach," Peter proclaimed to his left. Surprised Jackson inspected the saddle closer, and yes, not only was it made of northern leather and handiwork, and it also had the Hale family symbol burned into the side. And except Derek and his mother Talia nobody else in the family rode a black stallion.

"So you were lucky and escaped the Argents, huh? Good boy," Jackson spoke to the animal, and he could practically feel Peter rolling his eyes beside him.

"You know what? You came in just right moment. Would you like to get your rider back?"


	15. Her Own Way

Allison could barely see more than a few feet in every direction. The moon overhead was covered with clouds, which, in itself, wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, at least not for the northerners.

  
It has been five days since Derek and the druid, Jennifer, have joined their little ragtag group. The question if they would have to leave Derek behind because of his injuries was quickly solved by the surprising reoccurrence of his stallion. Although the ride was taxing for him and he nearly fell of several time during the last couple of days they were still able to keep on with their way towards the mountains without any greater interruptions or breaks.

  
They have set up camp on a clearing in the woods near the last town before the border. The only road leading through the valleys and canyons of the mountain was running through this town, and everyone who was travelling from one side to the other had to go through it. Therefore it was always heavily guarded.

  
The only advantage they had were that the path wasn’t yet entirely open due to the long winter, and therefore the security was accordingly lax for the lack of travelers and merchants. The other was that Peter knew a way smuggler used to get their goods over the border without paying the heavy taxes.

  
Still they had to pay the town a visit. They were lacking the equipment they needed if they wanted to get through these mountains alive. Most of all they needed appropriate clothing and medical supplies, but also provisions, something they have been severely lacking the last few days. They already gathered bundles of firewood they would take with them just in case. It wasn't much, but for one or two nights at a warm fire it would suffice.

  
Well, at least the northerners would. Allison could still remember how they have planned to leave her behind, tied to a tree until someone would find her. She has already resigned herself to her fate long ago, but the more time passed the more it began to annoy her.

  
The Northerners annoyed her. They and their honorability. This Scott fellow was the worst of the entire bunch.

  
The way he was always looking out for the others, how he made sure everyone else was taken care of first before caring about himself, how he was looking out for her! Allison hated it that he and those disgustingly honorable northern values have gotten under her skin.

  
She wanted that, too, damn it!

  
She didn’t want to hide while her countrymen were fighting a losing war, she didn’t want to appear at the end of a bloody battle in an ambush and slaughter hundreds of men with poisoned arrows. She didn’t want to live with a country full of people who considered it more honorable to abandon their fellow men to save their own skin than risking it saving theirs. All in the righteous face of survival.

  
She wanted to have what those Northerners seemed to give and take as a matter of course. She wanted to belong without questioning if the man or woman next to her would abandon her any given second.

  
Allison wanted to belong to these Northerners, and she despised that desire.

  
She was Allison Argent, princess and future queen. She shouldn’t feel so low about her own people and so high about another.

  
Sourly she observed the ones who’ve remained in the camp, taking watch or busying themselves with their gear. Cora was pacing up and down the camp and chewing on her nails, obviously agitated and nervous, but if it was for her comrades currently sneaking into town or for somebody finding their camp was unclear, but she made sure no not leave Allison out of her sight for a long a whole minute. Boyd was sitting stoically on a rock sticking out from the ground. He held his gaze attentively to where the direction the party has disappeared into the dark woods. Peter was taking care of the horse, rubbing its sweat and dirt (and leftover dried blood) off with some of the high and dry grass found in the clearing. Derek was resting or maybe even sleeping. His eyes were closed, and he looked significantly less pale then he did when they found him, but he still had a sickly hint to his skin. The druid was bending over him, checking on his wounds the third time in the last hour, as if they would heal faster if she just looked at them intensely enough.  
Allison could see the sleeves of her worn-out and dirty dress riding up her arms and revealing her wrists. Bruises that locked black in the skimpy moonlight posed a stark contrast to the rest of her skin. The skin around the cuts on her cheek was still swollen, letting her face look strangely misshaped and the angles even sharper. She held her shoulders down and tucked her head between them, as if she wanted to make herself as small as possible, hiding her vulnerability and making herself less of a target.   
Allison couldn’t stop staring at her.

  
Since she has seen her about to be raped by her countrymen she couldn’t stop observing that woman. It made her nauseous every time she thought about what those men would have done to her if their group hadn’t shown up when they did.

  
Allison wasn’t naïve. She knew what men did to women when they had the chance and thought they could get away with it, and even if they didn’t. She doubted the North was any different in that aspect. But the thought was a totally different thing compared to the reality of actually seeing it with her own eyes.

  
Jennifer raised her head from Derek’s lying form and met her gaze, but Allison couldn’t bring herself to avert her eyes. Swallowing the druid wiped her hands off on her dress before she stood up from where she was sitting on the grass and made her way over to her.

  
“I wanted to thank you,” the woman said, entangling her hands in front of her dress.

  
Allison frowned up at her. “For what?”

  
Again the druid swallowed. “For shooting that man,” she answered. She tilted her head downwards in an inquiring look. “It was you who shot that arrow, was it not? I have caught enough of the conversations going on here to know that the others hadn’t wanted to get involved before you forced them to.”  
Suddenly embarrassed Allison averted her gaze and looked into the empty forest. “It was nothing,” she said.

  
“It was everything for me,” Jennifer said. Allison turned her head just that much that she could look at the woman from the corner of her eyes.

  
She was smiling, and the grateful but also pained look on her face was enough to make her a little uncomfortable. Not able to stifle her curiosity Allison turned to face her properly. “Has this happened before? Men trying to…”

  
The smile Jennifer has worn on her lips a second ago vanished, and left was only a pained and scared look in her eyes. Allison was overcome with guilt for reminding the other woman of what was obviously a painful memory. She wanted to apologize, that it was stupid of her to even ask, but the words died on her lips when Jennifer sat down beside her. She just continued to silently look at her while the other woman gathered her thoughts.

  
“No, it wasn’t the first time,” Jennifer pressed out after another minute, her eyes looking at a faraway place. “A couple of days ago someone else has tried to... force himself on me. Derek saved me, but that incident led to us getting caught and the situation you have witnessed. But even that was not the first time something similar to this has happened.” To Allison’s surprise a rueful smile appeared on Jennifer’s face. “The people here are not particularly friendly to northerners, and if that person happens to be a druid, and a woman on top of that, then problems are preassigned.”

  
“Then what made you come to the South in the first place?” Allison asked. She herself couldn’t imagine living in a country where everyone would hate her. The risks and scorn involved would surely have outweighed anything else.

  
“Someone was after my life. Going to the South was my only chance of survival, just like staying here. I couldn’t go home.” Jennifer had this faraway look on her face again, full of longing and homesickness. “But maybe now I can,” she continued, turning her head towards Derek and the others.

  
Allison followed her gaze, her own eyes landing on Derek’s still body. A shiver ran down her spine when she remembered how she has had her sight on him, her arrow already pulled back towards her cheek before she has let it snap from her bowstring, not only once, but twice. She could still hear her aunt whispering into her ear before the battle, how she had to keep a special eye open for Derek Hale.

  
She tried not to acknowledge the feeling of shame and guilt swelling up inside her chest, tried to smother it with hostility and anger. She wanted to belief that it worked, but maybe she was only kidding herself.

  
She was ripped out of her thoughts when three figures made their way out of the darkness of the forest towards their camp. Everybody was on edge from one seconds to the other, but when they could make out who was coming they relaxed again.

  
Jackson, Scott and Isaac were laden heavily with bundles of heavy cloth and bags full of supplies. They were panting heavily under the weight, but maybe they were just warm under the thick coats and boots they have already thrown over their attire.

  
With a dull ‘thumb’ they let their charge fall to the ground. Scott, still carrying one of the bags, went over to Derek’s side, and Jennifer hurried towards them. They treated his wounds in the background while the others started pulling on the clothes.

  
“Nobody raised the alarm, and as far as I can tell nobody followed us, but we should head out as soon as possible to be on the save side,” Jackson said, watching out into the forest.

  
Everybody waited more or less patiently while the druid treated Derek and she and Scott helped him into the clothes. His movements were still a little sluggish, but he could ride on his own without falling off now. They helped him onto the horse, and they were ready to go.

  
Suddenly Allison felt remorseful. While she looked at those foreign people she had this unexplainable feeling of homesickness. She wanted to go home, too, just like they did. The problem was that she didn’t know where that home was anymore, and she felt off kilter.

  
This few days she has been away from her family, from the things she was used to, her normal life. They have given her a different view of what she has called her home and her people until now, and it has changed something inside her. This few days have shown her a different life, has let her see the people on the other side of those cursed mountains. How they thought, how they felt, what they valued. Those small glimpses have awoken a curiosity, a hunger inside her to learn more about them, to understand them. She wanted to know what they were thinking, how they lived, why they did what they did. But now she had to watch how they went back to their home, back into the land she so desired to explore, to understand.

  
After Scott has helped Derek onto the horse he came over to her, a rope in hand. He didn’t want to meet her eyes, instead fixing his on the item in his hands. When he raised his gaze up to her face for the fraction of a second she saw regret flash in those brown pools.

  
It was almost funny how easy she was able to read him. He was sorry, it was written plainly on his face. From what she has learned about him after those few days was that he probably wanted to take her with them, show her the North and his people and their customs, make her understand as much as she wanted to understand.

  
When he started binding the rope around her wrist she had the urge to ask him to take her with them. She has already opened her mouth, the words forming on her tongue, but then her pride and the voice of her aunt and grandfather echoed in her head, and she swallowed the words that have already risen down again.

  
She wouldn’t beg, she wouldn’t ask for anything. She was a princess of the South, and she wouldn’t ask anything from her enemies.

  
She felt Scott fumble with the rope behind her, and Allison resigned herself to her fate. It would be along couple of hours until she would be able to free herself from them and escape.

  
And then several things happened at once.

  
"Looks like we've found our little thieves," a voice toned from the other side of the clearing, right from where Scott and the others have come from. At the same time almost two dozen men jumped out of the underwood, surrounding them from all sides. At once one of the men tried to hold back the horse by it's reigns, but Derek kicked him in the face and he stumbled backwards, blood gushing over his face. Another one has grabbed Jennifer and held a sword to her throat. Everybody has already moved to grab their weapons, but at the sight they stilled mid-movement.

  
"Shit," Jackson muttered somewhere, and Allison thought that it was a good describtion of the situation.

  
She felt the roped around her wrists loosen and fall to the ground. She raised her hands in the air and took a step towards the man holding Jennifer at sword point. He immediately tightened his grip at her and pulled her between them as a shield. Allison stopped.

  
"My name is Allison Argent, Princess of the South and heir to Christopher Argent, your future king," Allison started to introduce herself, but she didn't come far. Almost every soldier on the clearing either snorted or outright laughed at her words.

  
"Yeah, sure. And I'm the Queen of the North," the man behind Jennifer said with a sneer. Allison grit her teeth in anger.

  
"You don't seem to know who you have captured here," she spat out. She really didn't like that guy. "Even so far away from the capital you must have received massage of the escaped northerners, in which were, amongst others, members of the royal family of the North. And you must have received massage that they have taken your King's granddaughter captive on their flight."

  
The man looked irritated, but Allison also noticed that doubt has crept into his gaze. "The last one didn't went public notice. Nobody but the guards know about that. How do you know that?"

  
Allison refrained from rolling her eyes. "Because _I’m_ the captive princess. And this group is the group of northerners that have escaped the capital."

  
The men looked at each other, clearly not sure what to do. Allison scratched every piece of majestic dignity she possessed under these circumstances and lowered her hands, starting to walk towards the man still holding the druid.

  
"Now if you would have the grace would you tie them up already? I'm tired after the last couple of days, and I want to go home. Maybe I can bring my father to give you a juicy reward."

  
The man blinked in surprise of her sudden confidence. Disorientated he nodded at her, his posture relaxing a bit. The prospect of a reward probably helped.  
Allison schooled her featured when she stepped next to the man, looking at her involuntary travel companions.

  
If looks could kill she would be long dead by now.

  
She saw Jackson's fingers switch to his blades, and even the stoic Boyd scowled at her. Isaac looked frightened. Only Scott looked at her with regret and betrayal, and it drove a stab right through her chest at the look in his eyes. She tried to not let it show.

  
"All right, men! If she is telling the truth or not, we will find out when someone from the captial comes to confirm it! Until then tie those mongrels up and let’s get them back into town," the man ordered the others.

  
They approached the northerners, heavy iron cuffs already dangling from their hands. Allison observed them, saw how they moved and how they got closer, waiting.  
When the right time came and the soldiers were close enough to strike down Allison moved.

  
She lashed out to the man holding Jennifer. She grabbed his wrist and twisted it. She could hear it cracking even through the noise of the upcoming quarrel and chaos now taking over the clearing was invading her senses.

  
As soon as she moved the others used the window of opportunity and grabbed their captors weapons. Taken by surprise the soldiers were slower to react and almost six of them were beaten before they could properly react.

  
Allison grabbed the sword that fell from the man's now lax hand. She swirled around herself, bringing the blade to the man's neck, but he ducked and started to counterattack.   
As soon as his hands left her body Jennifer first ducked to evade anything Allison might do with the sword and then dashed towards the horse and Derek. He was leading the animal like only someone with years of experience and deep trust between him and his companion could ever so. He evaded swords and bolds of crossbows and intercepted the soldiers any way he could, his stallion dancing around his opponents and even biting them when it got the chance to. When Jennifer cape up to him he grabbed her hand and pulled her up behind his back.

  
Over and over Allison met the short sword her opponent has drawn as a substitute, and although she had the upper hand she let him push her backwards towards the others. They were also fighting against the soldiers, but there were too many, and they were pressing in.

  
Her opponent made an unfortunate step forward and slightly lost his balance. Allison used the opportunity and knocked his weapon out of his hands. Quickly she grabbed him and pulled him in front of her while she turned towards the other men, holding the blade of her sword at his neck and slightly nicking the skin.

  
The roles were reversed.

  
"If you don't want to lose your commander you should better take a couple of steps back," she threatened. The men hesitated, but then they reluctantly retreated. Now they were the ones who tried to kill her with their gazes.

  
"Now," Allison continued, "if you want to keep your precious commander you won't come after us. When we see you following us I will not kill him. I will cut his fingers and toes off and punch every single one of his teeth out of his mouth before removing his testicles. He will be nothing more than a useless, drooling cripple afterwards. You better do as I say, because I will hold true to my word." The commander uncomfortably squirmed in her grip. _Good_ , she thought.

  
Slowly she retreated, and the northerners did the same. Slowly but surely they started to creep back into the forest and the darkness it provided, never losing sight of the soldiers on the clearing. When they were a respectable distance away Jackson came forward and punched the commander in the face and knocked him out.  Afterwards he turned towards her, his nose almost brushing hers.

  
"What the hell was that?" Isaac said in the background, but Allison ignored him.

  
"We have no time. They are probably already on their way back to town to get reinforcement. They probably suspect we are on our way to the mountains. If we don't hurry-"

  
"We?!" Peter asked her. "I don't remember you coming with us!"

  
"And I remember that I just saved all your sorry asses!" Allison spat back.

  
"But only after you practically told them our destination! You told them who we are and where they needed to go to catch us! You led us right into their hands!"

  
"If I wanted you prisoner I would have just let them be and take you back to Gerard!"

  
"Then why haven't you?" The question was so calm and out of place in her agitated mind that Allison haltered in her actions. She could only blink at Scott who just met her eyes, the look on his face curious and confused. It was startling how much he looked like a lost puppy in that moment.

  
She pursed her lips, not knowing what to answer to that question. Why did she do it? She could have those men go take them prisoner and be done with this entire situation.

They would have realized that she was the kidnapped princess and she would have been able to go home again, back to her old life. Everything would go back to the way it was, how it has always been.

  
But alone the thought that all of this would end, that she would have to go back to those duties and responsibilities and expectations that awaited her, just so she could one day take over the mantle of monarch and go on like her people have done for centuries made her stomach knot into an uncomfortable mess.

  
Maybe alone the thought of Scott and Isaac sitting in a moist and cold dungeon, haggard and pale, waiting for their execution made her chest squeeze. Maybe the image of Jennifer crying and pleading while her countrymen raped her over and over again made her want to puke. Maybe the guilt eating at her guts about what she did on the most recent battlefield made her want to flee her own skin.

  
Allison couldn't explain it to herself. Rationally she knew that she couldn't - shouldn't - fight more for these foreigners than for her own people, but she couldn't change it.

Those northerners have wormed themselves under her skin and into her heart. And that very heart longed to continue this unexpected adventure, this new feelings she has never felt for her own subjects. Her head told her no, but everything else in her body was yelling yes.

  
But she couldn't voice her thoughts. She couldn't describe in words what she was feeling, couldn't name them or make everyone understand.

  
But it seemed that she didn't need to. Scoot looked her in the eyes while she explored her reasoning, and it was as if he could see into her very should and read the truth. The look of curiosity changed places with understanding and - dare she say it - hope and happiness. He turned towards his father, whose hackles promptly rose with exaggeration and anger.

  
"No! We are not taking in another one of those southerners! I don't care that she saved our lives! We are not taking her with us, too!"

  
"But it was always our way that we owed it to someone when they saved out life! When those men report that she helped us-"

  
"She's the damn princess! They won't execute her for helping us! They might reprimand her, but that will be the worst they will do to her."

  
Allison snorted. "Yeah, right. Looks like you don't know my grandfather very well. He doesn't forgive anyone who allied themselves with the enemy, not even his own kin."

  
Scott gestured towards her. "See? If we leave her they will do the gods know what to her. Is that the way how we show our gratitude?" He crossed his arms. "And anyway, now that Derek is back HE is the one in authority, he is the second in line after Laura after all."

  
Everyone's eyes turned towards Derek. He has observed the exchange so far. Now his eyes lay on Allison, and she had the feeling as if he was judging her, as if he could see with his bare eyes every intention, good or bad, she has ever had in her entire life. She tried not to squirm or avert her eyes. She wanted him to see how determined she was, how strong, that she has made her decision.

  
It felt like an eternity that she observed her, Jennifer's arms tightened around him in anticipation. Without averting his inquisitive gaze Derek asked, "What does everybody else think?"

  
"I don't like her," Cora spoke first. She looked disgruntled. "But she DID save our lives." She left it at that.

  
"Whatever you say," was Boyd's short reply. He really didn't seem to care either way.

  
"I don't like her either," Jackson threw in, "but when we take her with us and she pulls some kind of stunt we can still kill her off if we have to. Not really different than before."  
Peter shook his head, rubbing a hand over his face in disbelief. "This is a really bad idea."

  
Derek nodded once and then turned his gaze towards the Border Mountains, pulling in his reigns. "Then it's decided. We should get going as long as the darkness is still giving us cover. Boyd, take that guy, maybe we can use him as leverage again."

  
A breath of relief left Allison's lungs, and a strange feeling of exhilaration and excitement spread in her chest. Scott looked like someone had just given him a new horse as a birthday present, and Allison couldn't help herself and smiled back at him.

  
Quickly Boyd hoisted the commander over his shoulder, a soft grunt leaving his lips at the additional weight. Meanwhile Jennifer slid off the horseback. Derek seemed reluctant to let her go, but the weight of him and the wood was already enough for the stallion, it didn't need an additional person to carry.

  
They started their way towards the mountains with a quick pace, their steps almost running. Isaac fumbled with the straps of her quiver before handing it over to her. Scott shot Cora a meaningful look, and with a roll of her eyes she handed Allison her bow as well.

  
The feeling of the weapons back in her grasp shot another feeling of exhilaration through her. Already she felt a little better in her skin, more like herself.

  
But at the same time she knew that she wasn't the same person any longer. She didn't want to. She looked back on her previous self, before she was forced to see the world with different eyes. She looked back and saw a girl who was like a puppet, who did everything her grandfather and father and mother and aunt have told her to do. She has been their good girl, but at the same time she hadn't thought for herself. In her heart she knew that what her family was doing was wrong, that they have lost themselves on the way they were treading. And she has followed them on their misguided path with blind eyes.

  
Maybe now she was only following other people, maybe their path was as misguided as her family's, but she would find out soon enough. And this time she wouldn't close her eyes from what was right in front of her out of loyalty and habit. This time she would be more critical. She was done with blindly following other people.

  
This time she would go her own way.


	16. Luck

Luck wasn't on their side. It never was from the start, but now it was officially shitting on them from the heavens.

At first they thought they could get away easily. They discarded the commander quickly before he woke up, Allison taking his clothes for the way, and they made their way to the smuggler road. But it seemed that the loyal soldiers of his royal majesty weren't the only ones searching for them. The Argent's must have put a pretty high price on their heads, for shit got real after they passed group of smugglers who were on their way to town. Not shortly after another group of soldiers were hot on their tails, the smugglers no doubt snitched them for a nice amount of extra coins.

They've chased after them for a couple of miles, and the soldiers have come dangerously close right until the tail end of their chase. A snow slide caused by the thaw was the only thing that has saved them from capture, but almost killing them in the process as well. They have won some time by the slide, but not overly much.

And then there was the blizzard.

Four days into their way through the mountains a snowstorm hit them. It has been one of those unpredictable spring storms that could easily be deadly even for prepared travelers.

And they've been _unprepared_ for it. Vastly.

Although they were equipped with better gear than when they escaped the dungeons; their equipage still wasn't enough to face such a storm.

They fought their way through the wind, the snowflakes and hailstones biting and cutting into their skin, their pelts not strong enough to keep them from freezing in the deathly blizzard. The only coverage from the wind they had has been tall boulders and ledges, but neither provided much protection from the snow nor did they give them a chance to make a fire to dry their clothes and warm their freezing bodies.

They were already caught in this storm for three days, and all of them were miserable for at least two. They shivered and rubbed their limbs to warm them up a little, but most of the time they were too tired digging their way through the vast blanket of snow to do much extra moving. The cold has seeped deep into their bodies, their pelts not warm enough to keep it at bay for much longer, and together with the cold came exhaustion and desperation.

Also Derek's condition worsened. Although he has been better when they entered the smuggler road, he has still been weak from the infection that has burned through his veins and that still simmered underneath his skin. The struggle through the blizzard together with the biting cold threatened to kindle it back into an inferno. If it weren't for Darach carrying him he would have succumbed to his sickness long ago.

The only good thing coming with the storm was that their pursuers had the same problems as them fighting the weather.

"We have to find shelter," Peter shouted over the wind. "We can't take another night in the open and go on like this. Is there something up ahead?"

"I think I see a cave up on that ledge," Allison called back, pointing forward. She had the sharpest eyes from all of them, and thus walked at the peak of their group to scout up ahead. Although even she couldn't see very much either through the thick bout of snow.

"You sure?" Jackson dug deeper.

"Do you have a better idea?" Allison snapped back, a sour look on her face.

Before Jackson could give her a retort and they would engage in a real fight Scott intervened. "It doesn't matter," he interjected. "We don't have any other options. It's worth looking like anybody else."

Begrudgingly Peter nodded in acceptance, and they pushed forward. It was even harder to fight their way up the ledge, and when they were finally up everybody was ready to drop after the day's journey, shelter or not.

There was a cave as a matter of fact. The entrance just big enough for Darach to fit inside. It was not very deep, but it would suffice for all of them. They were just glad that they didn't have to sleep in the biting wind that night and could actually warm themselves up for the first time that week.

Quickly they hoisted Derek off the horse and lay him inside. Jackson was already on it making a fire with the cinder they have brought with them, and they lay him down right beside it near the back wall. Derek was pale and drenched in sweat despite the cold, shivers wracking his overheated body.

"We have to get him out of his drenched clothes," Jennifer demanded, a hint of hysteria tainting the calm order. With numb fingers she began to open the buttons and clasps on Derek's attire while Scott helped her pulling him out of them.

Meanwhile Jackson was able to create a small flame which he then began to stroke into a bonfire with the help of the brought wood. In the flickering light Jennifer inspected the bandages and the wounds underneath Derek's shirt. They didn't bleed but the injuries looked enflamed, the area around them an angry red that stood in stark contrast to his sickly skin.

When another shiver wracked Derek's body Jennifer quickly opened her coat and gathered Derek in her arms, cradling him against her warm skin while she settled against a wall and wrapped her coat around them as good as possible.

"It got worse, doesn't it?" Scott asked, his worried eyes trained on the bandages that were safely tucked in place again.

"The wounds are not infected," Jennifer answered distractedly, her hands rubbing over the uninjured planes of Derek's chest to warm him up. "But he is still weak. The cold and strain of all of this is taking its toll on his body. I'm more concerned that a simple cold could kill him, or that he could get pneumonia, than him dying from an infection."

"Here," Boyd said and pulled off his undershirt. It was still dry and warm, and with a thankful nod Jennifer took the offered garment and dressed Derek into it before wrapping him back into her coat again. Boyd shrugged back into his own and sat down at the fire.

All of them huddled as close around it as possible, their moist clothes slowly warming up in the soft glow of the smoking flames. Nobody talked, all of them far too tired to speak or even cast angry and mistrusting glances at each other. Normally Cora, Allison or Peter would let a jab or insult slip about one or the other, but even they seemed to be too exhausted for their ongoing feud.

Once in a while one head dropped until it was jerked upwards again in surprised wakefulness, the licking of the flames against the wood more than enough to lull them into sleep.

But only when their clothes have dried did they lay down for the night. They shoved a generous amount of wood back onto the glowing ambers while they appointed someone for first watch.

"I'll do it," Jennifer offered. She was promptly met with uncertain eyes, and she quickly continued. "I want to make sure that Derek is properly warmed up, and I don't think I can sleep before that anyway."

"If she wants to do it then let her do it," Peter mumbled tiredly, already lying down and closing his eyes with a sigh.

The others accepted the offer quickly. None of them had the energy to argue, and they were just glad that they were able to rest now. Boyd offered to be on the second watch, and with a final nod Jennifer observed how the group lay down for the night.

It was the first time in days that she was able to inspect Derek's injuries unhurriedly. She didn't lie when she told Scott that she wasn't afraid of infection. If the wounds were infected they would have soaked the bandages with puss already and Derek would stand on death's door, if not dead already. But that didn't mean that there wasn't the chance that he could die from something else.

She leaned further over Derek's body, listening to the sounds his breathing made over the cracking of the flames. Until now there was no rattling in his lungs or sick coughs that indicated pneumonia, but that didn't mean that there wasn't the danger of it, especially in this snowstorm.

Worried Jennifer watched out of the cave. The snow and hail came more strongly than the previous days. It looked like they have come closer to the center of the storm. The flakes and hail corns looked eerily bright in the shine of the fire, the dark night building a stark contrast to the ice falling down from the heavens. The wind howled and threw the snow back and forth with unbeknown fervor, as if the storm was angry that they have escaped it's clutches for the moment.

The warm air slowly filled the cave, and although a freezing breeze drifted inside once in a while Jennifer grew steadily warmer. Her eyelids kept on growing heavier, and she had to fight to keep them open and not drop in exhaustion. When Derek began to stir in her arms, though, that woke her up real quick.

"Where..." he mumbled, barely more than a whisper while he turned his face a little further into Jennifer's neck.

"Shhh," Jennifer hushed him, rubbing his chest again. "We're in a cave to get a rest from the snowstorm," she explained quietly in his ear.

"How long-" Derek's words were interrupted by a dry cough, and Jennifer quickly fetched some water from a nearby backpack and held it to his lips. "How long are we on the move already," he repeated his question after he took a sip to wet his throat.

"Tomorrow will be day number 8," she informed him. "Normally we would be over the mountains in two or three more, but the storm thwarted us greatly."

Derek's head dropped heavily against her shoulder, a tired sigh leaving his mouth before he hissed in pain, one of his hands coming up to cover the wound on his stomach. He swallowed hard, trepidation in his voice, "How bad is it?"

"It's not the wounds I'm worried about," she confessed, her hand absentmindedly stroking over his chest and neck, feeling his veins pumping blood through his body in sync with his heartbeat. "You're weak, and this storm isn't doing you any good." She snorted humorlessly. "This is really not the way I have always imagined my return home."

She felt Derek relax against her, his head lolling to the side, his nose brushing against her neck. An involuntary shiver ran down her spine. "How did you imagine it?" he asked her, his breath ghosting over her pulse point and the rumble of his voice descending into her own chest, resulting in another shiver.

She smiled wistfully at the memory of her fantasy."I always imagined that one day I would hear that Kali was dead, maybe killed during a hunt. I would pack my things - just enough to make it back home and leave everything else behind - and then join a group of merchants to get over the mountain. Everyone could need a good healer, so they would surely take me with them. I would make my way back to my village and surprise my mother. She would surely cry, but she would be so happy." She had to smile at the picture her imagination created in front of her inner eye. "After that I would visit my former mentor and go with her to the Nemeton."

She stilled then, her chest feeling as if it was filled with stones. "By the Gods, how I miss the Nemeton." A yearning like she hasn't experienced in years suddenly filled every corner of her being, and she had to pull herself together with the thought of her close return to not start crying.

"Why do you miss it so much?" Derek inquired. He must have sensed her inner struggle, and she was thankful for him to pull her out of her depressed thoughts.

"I miss the connection with it," she answered. She thought back at her apprenticeship back in her younger days, when she has just leaned to delve into the power the Nemeton emitted. "It was as if it was all around you, inside you. It was connected to every tree and every plant in almost the entire North. I could reach out to it by just touching a branch or the bark of any tree, and it was as if the Nemeton was watching over its children, watching over _me_. Its power was like a warm blanket, consolatory and heartwarming in its gentleness, but also vitalizing and ferocious in its strength. When I connected to it I felt like there was no obstacle that was too great for me to overcome. The Nemeton gave me strength and protected me for years. Reaching for it was like a reflex, and when I suddenly wasn't able to do that anymore..." She had to swallow around the knot that has formed in her throat at the feeling, her eyes getting blurry with unshed tears she thought have dried out a long time ago. "It was as if I lost a limb. All of a sudden I was all alone, and I don't want to be alone anymore."

"You're not alone anymore," Derek whispered, his hand gripping hers where it has stilled over his chest. He squeezed it and pressed it firmly against his heart.

Warmth blossomed in the place where just a moment ago vast emptiness and loss resided. Smiling she squeezed his hand back, resting her head on his hair, taking in his soothing scent of earth and juniper that has already brought peace to her soul so many times before. "I know," she whispered back.

They sat in companionable silence, both of them watching the flames and drawing comfort from the other's presence. Eventually, though, Jennifer noticed how Derek's head dropped every once in a while when sleep tried to overcome him again. "You should sleep. You're body needs the rest," she whispered against his temple.

"You okay?" he asked sleepily, his eyes already closing.

Smiling Jennifer nodded before she pressed a kiss against Derek's hairline. "Sleep," she ordered, and in less than a minute Derek fell into a deep slumber.

 

XxX

 

They could already see the green line of the forests in the distance between the peaks of two mountains. Everyone agreed that it was due time that they came to an end of their hike through the Border Mountains. Normally the track would take eight to ten days, but the storm has slowed them down significantly. For fifteen days they already followed the tricky path through the valleys and ridges of the mountains, and more than once did they escape a snow slide by a hairsbreadth. All of them were thoroughly exhausted.

Just like Jennifer has feared did the persistent cold take its toll on Derek's body. Five days did the storm blow cold and dry winds through the valleys and ridges of the mountains, and at the last day it was that a simple cough has developed into pneumonia for Derek. Jennifer has tried to shield him from the icy air as good as possible, wrapping his and her own shawl around his face to slightly warm the breaths he took, but it has been to no avail.

If Jennifer had the proper equipment she would let him breathe herbal steam, but in the current situation that was impossible. There was nothing she could do to help him, not even ease his symptoms. Whenever he broke out in a coughing fit or shivers wrecked his body helplessness, frustration and desperation filled her chest. All she could do was sit with him and help him not falling off his horse.

Relief hung like a cloud over the group when they finally made their way down from a slope and towards the tree line. None of them has ever been happier walking down a rocky path towards some meager bushes and leafless trees.

"Was about damn time," Peter grumbled. He's been on edge since days now, and the others could practically see how he started to relax and gain back his calm as soon as they carefully walked down the path.

"There's a village to the east," Cora provided. She cast a worried glance towards Derek, her hand protectively lying on his calve, as if she could lend him her strength and health through her touch alone.

Derek on the other hand was out of it. His breath came out in a wet rattling that was occasionally interrupted by a couching fit.

"All right," Peter nodded. "Let's-" he was interrupted by distant shouts that echoed off the mountain sides.

Allison squinted her eyes in every direction, A second later her eyes widened in shock and whipped around to the others. "Behind the ledge! Come on! We have to hide!" she whisper shouted and waved into the direction of a stonewall peeking out of the mountain.

Hastily they scurried over, trying to be as quiet and inconspicuous as possible. When they hid behind the edge of the ledge they could hear the sound of hooves thundering against the ground.

Jackson glanced around the edge, and when a group of eight horsemen sped past their hideout he quickly stepped back towards the others. "They have the Argent crest on their gear," he whispered, a grave expression on his face.

"This is a patrol," Allison provided. "They are scouting the area. Word probably got here already of your escape and flight back home."

"But why are they here in the first place?" Cora asked. "We're not in the South anymore. They aren't even supposed to be here."

"You think they overhauled us on the pass?" Scott's voice sounded hopeful. He hoped that this was just a small part of a small entourage crossing over the border to catch them and bring them back before they could join back with their family and troops. He hoped this was just a chance meeting before they were back to safety. He wanted to belief that, because any other possibility was too horrifying to belief.

Everyone went silent. None of them wanted to be the one to shatter Scott's belief, but the silence was already answer enough to what they were thinking, and they could literally see how Scott's hope shrunk and crumbled inside his eyes.

"We should still go to the village," Peter eventually suggested. "With caution of course, but at least there we may be able to get to know something more concrete and actually get to know what's going on."

Everybody nodded in agreement, the rather chipper mood they were in before for finally reaching the North again has faded at the new discovery. They continued to hide for a few minutes longer to make sure the patrol has passed, Derek's half suppressed coughs the only sound breaking the silence.

When they eventually made their way towards the east the happiness they have felt just minutes before has turned into dread.


	17. Another One

The place was crawling with the Argent's men. They stood vigil at all the streets leading into town and controlled every carriage that has gone over the mountains and looked under every hood. Scott, Isaac and Cora were just lucky enough to sneak in when the guards were busy raiding the carriage of a poor merchant. They felt bad for him, but were glad at the same time that he provided a distraction for them.

Time and time again did they hide in dark alleyways and tried to merge with other groups when a patrol strolled through the streets, soldiers standing on every main street and occupying every larger tavern. Listening in on other's conversations was the best way to gather information without being noticed, the crowd providing anonymity. The alcohol loosened people's tongues and enabled them to ask questions they normally wouldn't get answers to in a sober state. But with so much southerners there it was a great deal more complicated to not draw suspicion to them, even in a large crowd.

They almost had to go to the edge of town to find an inn that didn't have southerners roaring in every corner and getting drunk after their day’s tasks.

To say the mood was gloomy would have been an understatement. Here and there groups were talking quietly to themselves. Based on their clothing those were merchants and travelers who just arrived from the Border Mountains. Everybody else who was in the taproom was quietly sipping their ale or nursed a bottle of something far stronger, no matter if they were farmers or craftsmen living in town or close by.

The group sat down beside one of those tables, the other occupants just casting them a drowsy look and then discarding them over their tankards. They ordered their own beverage by the barmaid and waited. They drank their ale in silence for the first minutes, and when they were sure that they haven't drawn attention to themselves Scott leaned over to the other table.

"Hey," he said in greeting. The other two men looked at him in surprise, obviously not used to foreigners talking to them these days. "Is there a reason why everybody is so quiet and depressed?"

One of the men who sported a bushy beard snorted into his tankard. "The better question would be: Is there a reason _not_ to be depressed."

Another man, this one bald, butted into the conversation. "Don't mind him, he's always in a bad mood." Scott smiled in encouragement, and the man continued, leaning forward conspirationally. "There was a another raid today. This time it hit ol' Jenkins at the tannery. They said he has sold his leather to a couple of suspicious people." The man snorted. "Of course that's complete nonsense. The southern scum just love to harass us here. Destroyed all of Jenkins' goods and tools just because he has complained about one of them ogling his daughter. Of course they violated her as well just to spite him."

The bearded man spit out on the ground at the other's words, his expression even darker than before. "Sick bastards," he muttered and took another swing of his ale. "She's only twelve." Then he looked first at Scott and then at Isaac and Cora, his eyes narrowing. "What are you even doing here? You don't look like you are staying in this Inn, you don't even have baggage with you." He balled his free hand into a fist and leaned forward, his eyes twinkling dangerously in the dim light. "You work for the Argent's, don't you? You’re here to spy on us, listen to what we say and report back to your little friends!"

"Great gods, Joe! Calm down your horses!" the bald man chastised his companion, glaring at him. "Not everybody who comes through this town spies for the Argents. I would even bet that all of us want them gone as fast as possible."

The bearded man grumbled into his beard and took another deep mouthful out of his ale, emptying it in one go and waving his hand for another one. To Scott and the others the bald man smiled ruefully. "I apologize for him. Ol' Jenkins is his cousin, you know? He's so pissy because it's something concerning family." He frowned. "But he's right. What ARE you doing here? Don't get me wrong, but not many people come through this place nowadays."

"We're on our way to visit family," Scott lied. "We're just passing through." He frowned at the men, piercing them with a hard look. "And belief me, we surely aren't cooperating with the Argent's. They killed my cousin, her brother," he said and pointed at Cora. He could see the pain in her eyes, and he knew that she was digging up the memory of the time when they thought Derek was dead, just like he did. The hurt was still fresh, and even though he knew that Derek was alive the relief was diminished by the darkness that threatened his life once again.

"I'm sorry lad," the bald man said, and the bearded one spit out again, cursing under his breath.

They continued to drink in silence until the door to the tavern opened and a group of southerners walked in, chatting loudly and roaring with laughter. They settled in the middle of the taproom, and the other residents of at the tables glared at them or averted their eyes.

Quickly Scott and the others threw back their heads and drank their ales before standing up. "I think we'll take our leave before we do something we will regret later," he said to the two men, and they grumbled in agreement, bidding them a good night.

They hurried back outside into the chilly night and scurried towards one of the lesser crowded streets.

"We didn't exactly discover much," Isaac complained while they walked.

"At least now we know that they've been here for a while now," Scott said trying to see the bright side of their visit.

"But we can't really go around asking more questions on what's going on," Cora threw in. "Obviously everybody knows what's happening here, and when we're the only one's clueless then we will draw suspicion to ourselves."

The others nodded in agreement. They were already drawing attention with their attire, and when they went through town asking questions they would draw a cross line on their backs. They almost tripped with the two men at the tavern. They couldn't take another leap.

"We should probably go back," Scott proposed. "This place was too hot for us to begin with."

They just entered an alley to go back to find a way to exit the town, to look for a loophole to disappear when they bumped into another person.

The person flailed with its arms on impact, trying to regain its balance. It just didn't do the person any good, for he not only fell down to the ground with a pained groan but also ripped off the hood of Cora's head.

The person was, in fact a young man around his twenties. He was rubbing his butt from where he hit the ground, his limbs long and gangly as if he still tried to grow into them.

"Ow man, that hurt," he said, looking up at them. "Look, I'm sorry I bumped into you, but-" His eyes went wide in his face, his mouth falling open. Scott followed his gaze and noticed that he was looking at Cora. More specifically, her neck. That damn tattoo was going to be the death of them some time.

"Oh shit, you're-" he didn't get further, for Cora has shot forward and grabbed the young man at his collar and hauled him off the ground and into the dark alley they have wanted to disappear into before they crossed paths.

Roughly she shoved him into the wall, a dagger already pointed at the juncture of his thighs.

"All righ, all righ! Hey, calm down!" the man shrieked, his hands up in the air and freezing in his movements. "No need to get drastic," he tried to reason, his voice a little high in hysteria.

"You forget what you saw," Cora snarled into his face, pressing her blade a little harder against his pants.

"Whoa! Okay okay, listen! All right, you know what? I won't tell a soul! I swear!" the man said, his eyes shooting from Cora's face down to her dagger and back again.

She poked the tip of the blade into his thigh for good measure, the man jelping at the sudden sting, before letting go.

She just turned towards Scott and Isaac, the group ready to disappear as fast as possible now that they've been discovered, when he spoke again hastily. "But, you know, I could help you."

Stilling Scott turned around, meeting the man's gaze. His big brown eyes looked honest and excited, eager almost, and with an inquisitive turn of his head Scott encouraged him to continue.

"I know a way out of town without being discovered," the young man provided. "My dad was the sheriff here before the Argent's came and practically fired him. Now that I think about it they didn't _practically_ fired him, they _literally_ fired him. He's sitting at home for days now, and I'm afraid he will start drinking again." His eyes furrowed in worry before he shook his head. "What I'm saying is: you can trust me."

At those words Cora stepped forward again, her dagger raised threateningly. "I say that you're talking a lot of _bullshit_ ," she snapped. Again the young man raised his hands placatingly, urging backwards again at the threat of pain and possible death.

The sound of roaring laughter and drunken slurs interrupted their conversation. Viciously cursing under his breath the young man ushered them towards a small alcove where a door went into the wall, disregarding Cora's displeased hisses and Isaacs protest.

After that he hurried towards the opening of the alley, and Scott peaked out of their hideout to observe him.

A group of soldiers passed the alley, pausing when they saw the young man leaning casually against the wall. "Evening gentlemen. How's it going?" he said, waving at them. Scott almost cringed at the forcefully chipper tone of his voice.

The soldiers though seemed to be too drunk to notice something was amiss, instead leaning closer. "You're the sheriff's son, aren't you? How's daddy?" one of them asked. The others started laughing while Scott noticed how the young man clenched his jaw in agitation.

"Yeah, that's me," he said, but his reply drowned in the chatter of the soldiers.

"What's you name again? Something awfully long and complicated, isn't it?" The soldier tried to pronounce something, but either the words or the drunken heaviness of his tongue stopped him from succeeding, much to the amusement of his companions.

"You know, you can call me Stiles," the young man provided, and the soldiers started laughing again.

"Such a stupid name," one of them said, shoving Stiles into the wall. Stiles rubbed his shoulder, but didn't attempt something in retribution.

"So, what's your daddy doing nowadays?" a soldier asked, snickering at his own jest.

"Oh, he's great," Stiles said, the forced good mood back in his voice. "He has lots of times for his hobbies now, you know? Fishing, tinkering around with the things in the house. He even repaired the roof three days ago thanks to you guys taking over."

"Smartmouth," a soldier said, shoving Stiles into the wall once again.

The group soon lost interest in the young man when they noticed that they couldn't bate a reaction out of him. They soon went along their way to the next tavern, leaving Stiles behind at the alley, watching them retreat.

When he was sure that they were gone he turned around and came over towards Scott and the others.

"Still think I'm full of bullshit?" he asked, looking Cora straight in the eyes with a smug smile on his face. She in return just grumbled begrudgingly, glaring at him but sheathing her dagger.

"You say you know a way out of here?" Scott asked, confident in his previous assumption that Stiles only wanted to help.

"Yeah, but you could also stay at my place for the night. I belief that's more comfortable than staying out in the open," Stiles proposed.

"There are more of us outside of town." Scott admitted. "Six more to be exact. And a horse."

Stiles raised his eyebrows before smirking. "I think we can manage that somehow."

And with that he began leading them through the streets and back alleys like only someone who has grown up in that town could. Whenever they ran in danger of running into a group of southerners Stiles quickly detoured them until they were eventually back in the forest, carefully making their way back to the rest of the group.

 

xXx

 

Peter paced back and forth, his eyes never really leaving the dim illumination of the town below. They have taken residence on top of a hill where they were relatively hidden from view, but at the same time could overlook the shallow valley below.

It's already been a couple of hours since Scott and the others have made their way into town to gather information of why the Argent's men were in the North. He hadn't wanted to send them, but necessity demanded it. Information was vital, especially in such a vulnerable position like theirs.

And just like the necessity demanded of him sending them away it also demanded leaving them behind when they weren't back until dawn. The thought of leaving his own son - not by blood, but his son nonetheless - behind, possibly at the hands of the enemy, pained his heart, but the need of his country was in the forefront of his mind.

It wouldn't do the North any good if they were captured, not now that they have finally made their way back home. He had the distinct feeling that something was going terribly wrong in his homeland, which was another reason why he needed that information. He couldn't bear the uncertainty, not if he could do something to help. To help not only his country but his family as well.

The thought of Talia and Laura made his stomach knot uncomfortably. His sister has trusted him with the defend of their home, and he has disappointed her. He has failed in his task, and now he had the misgiving feeling that that failure has taken deeper repercussions than he has ever anticipated until now.

These southerners had something to do with it, and he had to know what they did or he was threatened to go crazy.

Once in a while his eyes fell on his nephew lying on the ground a few paces away from him. He was struggling with every breath he took to get enough air into his inflamed lungs, and the sound of the wet rattling was sending shivers down his spine.

In a strange way his nephew mirrored the state of his homeland. Lost at first, but then regained only to be threatened to be taken from him again. The irony was not lost on Peter.

The druid was sitting vigilant beside him, muttering encouragements into Derek's ear. Peter knew that there wasn't much she could do for him at the moment, with them being on the run and far away form either shelter or proper medical care, but he couldn't shake off the feeling of anger he had towards her current incompetence. Although his mind told him that there was nothing she could do, his heart felt betrayed by her inactiveness.

Let alone the looks she gave him. Peter has seen it ever since he met her. He has seen it in the way she tried to shield Derek with her body, how she has taken care of his wounds, the way she has cradled his weak body against her own. He has seen it in the look she gave him every single time, the worry in them, the warmth and heartbreak in the prospect of his soon demise.

She was infatuated with his nephew, and from what Peter has overheard in that cave in the Border Mountains the infatuation was reciprocated.

Maybe it was only because she has saved his life and the things those two have been through together before they rejoined, but either way this infatuation was greatly misplaced.

If Peter's suspicions came true and the South has invaded the North than they needed strong allies. Peter knew good enough that many of the northern aristocracy would only bind themselves with the promise of personal gain. A union with the royal family was a great price, especially when they came out victorious over their enemies. Personal feelings on either party would only hinder and sabotage such unions.

A mere druid's feelings towards a prince of the North was not a big deal. The feelings the Prince had towards the druid were the bigger problem, and Derek always had his own head. Yes, Derek has always had the good of his country in mind, but in times like this where this country was in danger not only from the outside but also from the inside this loyalty could come in question when it had to compete against personal feelings.

The Argent girl was another problem.

If Peter had it his way he would have killed her as soon as they had reached the Border Mountains. Her tagging along wasn't part of the plan, just like her saving their asses wasn't part of it.

At first he thought it has been a ruse, a way to gain their trust and then sell them out to her people. But then why didn't she let them get caught back then in the first place? Why did she help them get through the mountains when she could have easily killed them there without anybody being the wiser and continuing without them? Why warn them of the patrol when they finally reached home? Nothing of it made sense, and the matter of fact that she has been with them since they escaped the castle eradicated his suspicion that she knew what was going on in the North.

All of that led him to the uncomfortable realization that she really wanted to help them, and that was just something that he just didn't get into his head.

The Hales and the Argents were mortal enemies. They didn't just go around helping each other, especially not after such a recent battle like it has taken place between them. So who could blame him when he was doubtful of her true motives. He wasn't a trusting person by nature.

Opposite to his son obviously. He trusted people all too soon, first with the young soldier who guarded them in the dungeons, and now with the Argent girl. It was foolish, but in a way Peter envied Scott's innocence, his naiveté that told him that every person had a good heart until proven otherwise.

Peter has lost that trust a long time ago. Too many battles, too many deaths and too many failed peace treaties have chased that feeling out of him a long time ago.

"Someone's coming," Jackson muttered beside him and pulled him out of his thoughts.

Narrowing his eyes in the dark Peter looked over Jackson's shoulders from where he was crouched behind a group of bushes. And really, four figures crawled their way through the trees and up their hill. He recognized the silhouettes as Scott, Cora and Isaac, but the fourth person was sorely unbeknown to him.

Peter couldn't shake off the feeling that his son has taken in another stray.


End file.
